Man Doesn't Stay with His Wife in the Hospital After Her C-Section

A man is questioning whether he made the right decision for himself and his wife after he chose to sleep at home several days following her C-section.

In a recent post on Reddit's Am I the A------? forum, a man in the U.K. detailed the circumstances surrounding the birth of his and his wife's second child — and what led him to head home for the night after her surgery.

"My wife was admitted to the hospital for an induction of our second child. She had a rough time during her first pregnancy, as it was during lockdown," he began the lengthy post. "I was not allowed to stay [in the hospital] during that time, so she asked that I stay each night with her during this pregnancy. She gets quite anxious and wanted me there for support during the night."

Recounting how the delivery unfolded, the man wrote that he and his wife arrived at the hospital for the induction at around 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and she was admitted and started on hormones. As her labor wasn't progressing quickly, the wife told her husband to go home around 9 a.m. He came back again in the evening, and by midnight, his wife sent him home again.

By 1 a.m. on Tuesday, she had gone into active labor, and just three hours later, the baby was born via emergency C-section.

"We were moved around a fair bit until we were settled in a ward around 4pm on Tuesday. Both extremely tired (her obviously much more), but we managed a few hours [of rest] as they had a little sofa I could lie down on," the man wrote. "I got up throughout the night to help with baby so she could rest."

Over the next several days, the couple continued with their schedule as usual, with the man sleeping on the hospital couch as his wife recovered. Their problem first emerged when doctors noticed that their newborn had a health issue, and they had to be moved to a new ward of the hospital — one without couches or beds for partners to nap on.

According to the Reddit user, he has experienced lower back pain for some time, and had been carrying a cushion around with him so that he can sit more comfortably.

"It doesn't do much, but it means I can sit in the chairs for a bit rather than needing to lie down," he explained. "I told my wife I couldn't stay as I wouldn't be able to sit in the chair all night with no sleep. She expected me to stay the night and continue to help her out during the day."

Although he wrote that he felt "really bad about it," he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep sitting upright on the cushion all night and didn't want to risk hurting his back even more.

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"Then I'd be of no use the next day without sleep and with back pain," he reasoned. "I set everything up for my wife to make it easier for her during the night. I spoke to the staff and told them how anxious she is and that she'd need extra help and told my wife to ask for help when she needed it. I left at 12 a.m. and came back when the doors opened next morning. I've been taking over during the day and letting her rest when she wants to."

"My argument is that I can't physically stay awake all night and all day," the user finished, asking the Reddit community to weigh in on whether he was an "a------" for going home for the night.

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In the comments, fellow Redditors sympathized with both the wife and husband's points of view. Some people reasoned that it can be difficult for a woman who has recently given birth and experiencing postpartum pain to be told to do it alone.

"I don’t think either of you are a------ per se… but as someone who has had a recent C section, I’d be really upset if my husband left," one user wrote. "I couldn’t even get up to pick my own baby up and that was hard to accept. I ended up having a medical emergency 2 nights after, and I’m not sure what would have happened if he wasn’t there."

"That and with the hormones, I’m not sure 'I need a break because my back hurts' is something I could handle hearing when I don’t get a break and had just been cut open after 9 months of pregnancy," they added.

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Another commenter said they understood the man's reasoning for making sure he got sleep.

"[Not the a------], there’s a reason why on planes they instruct you to put on your oxygen mask first and then help your child," they wrote.

"Neither of you is the a------- here. It's an emotional and stressful time," another person added. "I'd hope that the hospital staff would have sent you home and actively reassured your wife that they'd take good care of her and baby so that you could get much-needed rest."

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