Wife (31F) is conflicted on whether to let me (32M) or friend (31F) be in the delivery room
My wife is currently 5 months pregnant, so I know this is something we have time to discuss, but it’s still bothering me. This would be our first child so I’m trying not to stress her out, but I know I can’t let this just fester in me so I wanted to talk things out here and make sure I don’t say something stupid.
We talked a few days ago about what plans she wanted to do when it came to deliver, and she wanted to go to our nearby hospital where her OB practices and have her deliver. Made perfect sense, but her OB told her that the hospital is still using Covid restrictions and limiting her to have 1 support person in the room.
I figured she’d pick me, but instead she told me she was considering taking her best friend Ashley with her. For some backstory, while Ashley is her best friend, we’ve had a few discussions where I felt like she was prioritizing Ashley over me and how I felt like a 3rd wheel in our own relationship, especially early on. To my wife’s credit she’s gotten a lot better about this and improved her boundaries.
We talked about this and I asked why Ashley? She’s never had a kid so she doesn’t know what’s going on, and if my wife thinks Ashley is more supportive than I am, why did she even marry me? The other thing is that I’m a family physician, and part of my residency training included delivering babies, I delivered 15 during training so if anything, I’d be more helpful since she knows I’m not going to panic at seeing blood, and that I could understand what is going on.
Hell, I told her I’d be fine if she took her mother over either of us, at least her mom had 4 kids before so she definitely knows what’s going on, and we’ve never fought over her like we did Ashley.
She said that she doesn’t think either of us is more supportive, it’s just that she had promised Ashley when they were younger that they’d be in the delivery room for each other. That just confused me even more and I asked why did that matter over her own husband getting to be there and hold his child?
I asked her what it would be like if I was having an important surgery and told her to stay at home so I could bring someone else, and she said it was different and that she didn’t want to argue it anymore.
The problem is that now she says she’ll take some more time on who to take with her, and I feel like I’m forcing my wife to take me when ultimately, she’s the one undergoing the major procedure.
It’s like I’m trapped between a rock and a hard place. Either I go, and my wife resents me for making her break her promise, or I don’t go and then I resent my wife for not letting me be there. I know we need to talk through this, but I don’t want to keep hassling her and adding more stress to her pregnancy, anyone else been in a situation like this before?