Art doing poor imitations of life

On the West Wing, Toby’s ex-wife has her twins in about two hours. We spend about three scenes on, My water Broke, to you’re having these kids in the next five minutes, to Daddy is going to pay for your education and braces.

On Six Feet Under, Brenda goes into early labor when her water breaks (at least a gallon by the way, not at all pretty to watch), from which we jump to a more raw portrayal of grimacing pain, then her baby is out and crying.

Going all the way back to Family Ties, when Andrew was born (1986), Meredith Baxter Birney was in labor for all of about ten minutes.

Even the ‘documentary’ style video from last weekends birth class cut to the chase with five quick shots of women trying different positions to stay as comfortable as possible, before the climactic push scenes.

So last night we watched the Mad About You take on this particular genre, and I have to say, corny and formulaic as it was, so far it’s been the best, most helpful depiction we’ve seen yet. Brought tears to both our eyes, which is rare for a sit-com.

To start, Jamie goes to the hospital three times for ‘false labor’. We don’t know many people that went through that, but it at least captured the anticipation of approaching the due date. So much more to the birth than just that one day. Let’s skip past the slapstick stuck in traffic scenes, and a truly bizarre bit on Paul sneaking past security with a concussed Bruce Willis (were they just trying to kill time with that sub-plot?). Rather they spend at least half the show on the hours, and hours of contractions before they even take Jamie into the Birthing room.

From all we’ve read, there seems to be a not-insignificant period of increasing contractions, during which doctors and nurses leave you more or less on your own until she’s at least 7-8 cm dilated.

Then it gets painful. By this point we’ve already spent upwards of 6 hours, and she’s not at the pushing stage yet. Paul is feeling more or less useless, trying to be helpful, but just getting in the way. Jamie is getting more and more withdrawn and sweaty.

We finally get to the point where she needs to push, right when she’s totally exhausted. Nothing left in the tank, hit the wall, throw in the towel, take me out coach, spent. So Paul steps up and keeps her going somehow, and the baby is born.

We’re both a mess at this point on our couch. Either way, it’s been more helpful than most things to see the whole process from start to finish. At least more than the clinical ten-minute video describing the biology of it all we got in Birth Class.