The Longest Shortest Time

Born on Television

I’ve been wanting to write this post for awhile but have been waiting for a TV show birth for timeliness. But the Up All Night birth came and went, as did two Parenthood births, and somehow I couldn’t get it together to post. So here it goes now, sans timeliness.

Back when I was pregnant I was in good TV company. Pam on The Office and Quinn on Glee were both knocked up, though not quite as far along as I was. When I went past my due date I remember telling my husband, Pam better not go before me. She didn’t. I got to watch both hers and Quinn’s births while holding my real live baby. I was actually a little nervous to watch birth scenes so close to my very traumatic childbirth experience. It was at a time that I was regularly experiencing PTSD flashbacks. And I couldn’t help comparing how I handled childbirth with how other women handled it. I now realize that how each birth plays out is beyond our control, but for months after Sasha was born I was crazy envious of women who were able to heal quickly—take their baby for walks or to the park weeks (days, even!) after giving birth. I guess I’m still envious of that.

I wondered. Will I be blinded by envy if Pam and Quinn have easy births? Will I freak out if they have trouble?

First, Pam. I just could not get over the seemingly unrealistic plot point in “The Delivery: Part 1” that Pam was holding out to go to the hospital because she would get an extra day if she arrived after midnight. In my experience, the number of days you’re allowed to stay at the hospital is based on the time your baby is born, not the time Mom checks in. (Sasha was born at 1:30 a.m. so I got the extra day!) Maybe this is different at other hospitals, but watching the show so soon after my own experience, I just could not get past this detail. And I think this colored my experience of the rest of the episode. Really? Jim doesn’t know what dilation means? And Pam accidentally breastfeeds her roommate’s baby? Funny stuff. But I didn’t buy it. I was left feeling . . . nothing. Pam didn’t do it better than me, she didn’t do it worse. She just did it fictionally, and in my mind, unrealistically.

Quinn, on the other hand, was a different story. Here, let me show you.

This scene from “Journey to Regionals” made me bawl my eyes out. For, like, a long time. I just re-watched it for the first time since I had Sasha and I teared up all over again. There’s something about Quinn’s facial expressions, her guttural groans, her random shouting and sweating that seemed absolutely real to me. Granted, things did not seem as complicated for her as they were for me (really, who would want to watch a complicated birth on TV anyway?). But I still felt what she was going through at my core. And not in a way that made me freak out—just in a way that made me feel like, Yes, yes, there are people out there who get it. Some of them even make TV.

What about you? Are there TV births you’ve watched that seem absurdly unrealistic? Or ones you really relate to?

Top photo: Fox