Advice for the dad-to-be

Maybe I missed it during our six week childbirth class, or didn't think to look for it on a website, or didn't get it emailed to me from BabyCenter, but I didn't give much thought about what to pack in my overnight bag for Henry's birth. With several of our friends expecting soon, here's what I recommend for the big day(s):

• Pack clothes for all seasons. The lowest recorded temperature on Earth was -130° F (Antarctica, July 21, 1983), and Pam's hospital room wasn't far off. Which is fine, she was the one doing all the work, but Henry was born in August and I thought shorts and t-shirts would suffice. I was wrong.
  
• Bring cough drops. (And breath mints). You go ah-hee-ah-hee-ah-hee-a-hoo for sixty seconds at a time, twenty times an hour for nineteen hours, you can get a little parched.
  
• Bring everything in from the car when you go into the hospital. We packed some snacks and I left them in the car thinking I'd go back and get them later. But turns out, bringing a new life into the world keeps you pretty busy.
  
• Epidurals are magical. I'm proud of Pam for going so long without one, and it probably helped move labor along, but epidurals are magical.
  
• Camera, video camera, scrapbook page for the footprints, pen and paper, a kid's book. The video camera not for the actual birth (I don't think they let you do that, and besides, nobody wants to see that), but the first few minutes of Henry's life on film is something I'm glad we have. We didn't have a page ready to go for Henry to put his first footprints though. We had the blinds closed in the delivery room and the whole seventeen hours of childbirth in the hospital kind of blurred together. You may want to write some notes down about what happened when so you can remember the next day. I also wanted to read Henry a story once we got settled in the postpartum room, but forgot it at home.
  

That's all I can think of for now. I'd be interested to hear advice from other fathers too (one dad who was in our childbirth class would suggest not paying attention to what goes on directly after the baby is born).