Vol. 66 - The Second Anniversary of One of the Funniest Things I've Ever Seen

On showing your whole ass

Today is our little girl’s second birthday.

Which means it’s also the second anniversary of one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my thirteen years with Emily.

The evening my wife went into labor, Emily and I dropped our son off with friends who agreed to watch him, checked in to the hospital, and settled in for a long night.

As soon as we had a room, Emily changed into her hospital gown which, like all hospital gowns, left her entire back exposed.

Shortly after we made ourselves as comfortable as a person in labor and her partner could be, a nurse walked in and introduced herself.

She was curt, to the point, all business. She was almost as tall as me (which, if you know me, means big). Emily and I liked her a lot.

As the nurse explained how the night was likely going to proceed, one of the various bleeps and bloops that meant nothing to us but everything to the team that would be coaxing our daughter from her womb bleeped or blooped in a way the nurse didn’t like.

She went silent, staring into the machine for an instant before she shot into action.

She barked a code into a two-way radio mounted on her shoulder like she was in CHiPs. She quickly punched a series of orders into one of the machines. Without looking away from the machine, she gave Emily a quick and direct order.

“I need you to roll over and get on all fours, Emily,” the nurse said.

And there, in an instant, was a side of my wife I’m not sure I’d ever seen. Or maybe I had.

But I tell you who hadn’t: the cavalcade of doctors, residents, and interns that immediately burst into the room, leaving the door wide the fuck open behind them, in direct view of Emily’s whole entire bare ass, which was directly facing the now wide-open door.

You see, the hospital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a teaching hospital. And there’s no shot the student doctors would miss out on a chance to see their trusty General help a baby whose heart rate was rapidly dropping.

The attending doctor introduced herself. She was the polar opposite of our nurse; small, smiling, and very demonstrative. Emily and I liked her a lot, too.

She explained that our daughter’s heart rate had suddenly and drastically slowed but that there was nothing to worry about, that it happens often and she was going to try something that would likely fix the problem.

I don’t remember the next few moments because, after the doctor’s reassurance, I couldn’t take my eyes off the door to our hospital room, which, again, was left wide open, Emily’s whole entire ass facing out into the rather busy hallway.

I bit my lip, trying not to laugh in the very tense and frankly scary moment.

Part of it was my predisposition toward humor in times of stress. Part of it was the fact that Emily’s ass was on display for the entire maternity ward to see.

Being the son and brother of doctors, I know better. I know that there is almost nothing you can show, say, or do to a doctor or nurse that they haven’t seen before. I know that there is almost nothing you can do to shock them or gross them out. I know that your grossest symptoms are things they see and hear every single day. And in that moment, I knew that every single person working on that ward had seen a dozen bare, laboring asses that evening alone.

Still, there was something hilarious about my wife on all fours, her big, pregnant ass poking out of an all-too-small hospital gown, the door wide open, and half-a-dozen student doctors who, just a few years ago were teenagers, staring deep into a side of Emily most people have never seen.

I had to laugh.

And once the doctor confirmed that our little girl’s heart was just fine, Emily joined me.

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This newsletter has been approved for publication by Emily and her whole entire ass.

Although she did have one note, which she emailed me:

“good to go. but i did have socks on. for the record.”

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