A woman refuses to allow her husband in for the delivery of their first child. She opted to have her mother and sister in the delivery instead of the Father. The new father posted on Reddit asking whose behavior was worse: his, or his wife’s.
The man, 28, said that his wife, 29, had a “fairly standard pregnancy.”
“I did my best to take care of things and make it easy for her,” the husband wrote.
“I took her to the hospital when she was due and her sister and mother met us there.”
Once the new mother was being taken to the delivery room, things got turned upside down, the man explained.
She requested her mother and sister be in the delivery room with her, and that her husband not be allowed in until she had “delivered and calmed down.”
The man was “shocked” but said he didn’t want to “make a scene.”
“The problem started when she was taken to the delivery room,” the scorned father began. “She asked the nurse that only her mother and sister be allowed in the delivery room and then told me that she wanted me to wait until ‘I’ve delivered and calmed down’ before letting me into the room.”
“I was kind of shocked and didn’t want to make a scene so I just said OK and sat down in the waiting room,” he added. “We had not really discussed the plan for the hospital and I had no reason to think I wouldn’t be there when my son was born.”
After spending many hours in the waiting room, the original poster said he decided to go home, and texted his wife’s sister to tell his wife that he would meet his new son the following day.
“I sat in the waiting room for 6 hours getting minimal updates as the labor was fairly slow,” he wrote. “I decided there was no point so I texted her sister that I was going home. I’d meet my son when they brought him home and handle the birth certificate stuff the next day.”
“They came home…and I was finally able to meet my son,” he continued. “When my wife’s mother and sister left, she got very angry at me for leaving her at the hospital. I was angry too but I told her that we can talk about this in a few days because she’s just given birth.”
“She wouldn’t drop the subject so I finally told her that she excluded me from the birth of my son for no reason, I didn’t see the need to hang around a hospital waiting room for hours doing nothing,” he added.
In the viral Reddit post’s top comment, which has received more than 15,500 votes, Redditor u/Sarioth blamed the couple’s lack of a birth plan for the original poster being kept out of his wife’s delivery room.
“Her sister told me I should just apologize and move past it because it was a stressful time for my wife, but I think I’m owed a bigger apology first for how I was excluded from my own son’s birth,” he wrote.
Still upset, the new dad asked for commenters’ opinions on the situation.
“Y’all just thought everything would go OK and didn’t even think to like, make sure you were on the same page about a major medical procedure/bringing a person into the world?” they questioned.
The “official” ruling by Redditors was the rare “Everyone Sucks Here,” reserved for circumstances where all parties are in the wrong.
“The lack of a clear plan was the problem from the start,” wrote one commenter.
“Think this is a situation where you can talk about why there was a miscommunication on both sides then figure out how to avoid a repeat in the future.”
“If your wife didn’t want you to be in the delivery room, that should have been discussed ahead of time,” Redditor u/teresajs commented. “She essentially shut the door in your face and expects you to just have waited in the uncomfortable waiting room for 15 hours.”
“Or two days,” wrote another Reddit user. “I went through seven or eight shifts of nurses when I delivered my first.”
“It was completely sh*tty of her to cut you out of that,” they wrote. “At the same time, I feel like you shouldn’t have left.”
“This is a no win situation, where no one is in the right,” the Redditor added. “Both sides deserve an apology.”
“Creating a birth plan ahead of time helps you make decisions about how you want your labor and delivery to be, and lets others know your wishes” the WebMD website reads.