I was about to say, "Very pregnant, mister," when suddenly my wife, Sonya, cried out from the bedroom, "It's coming!"

It's coming—not he or she, because we didn't know the sex. No peeking at sonograms for us. We just love a surprise.

"It's coming, NOW!"

It's a terrible thing to admit, but I was thinking, NOW? How does she know? Couldn't it be false tremors, due to the, uh, the Bradley-Hiccup contractions? Or were they palpitations? I'd never read the pamphlet on our coffee table, "How to Know When You're in Labor." Now it was too late.

Sonya hollered once more. "The head is coming out!"

That's when the tingle of imminent fatherhood accelerated into something closer to blind panic: at 4 a.m., in a home medically equipped with no more than Band-Aids and aspirin, my only helper our 2-year old, Rudy, in happy-face pajamas.

Exceedingly natural birth was not my idea of a pleasurable welcome to the world. It's true that a friend of a friend of ours gave birth in a water-filled horse trough, aided by the sort of hungry helpers who did not let the afterbirth go to waste. But as a man who practically begged for nitrous oxide during my most recent dental work, "natural childbirth" is as appealing to me as "natural tooth removal."

My wife is of tougher stuff. Sonya delivered Rudy after 14 unmedicated hours of squeeze and push. As Rudy began to emerge, the doctor kindly inquired if I'd like to bear closer witness. I sputtered, No, thanks, I'll stay up here, topside, swabbing Mom's sweating brow.

I knew that a "modern dad" shouldn't shy away from such an opportunity, but there was a fair chance that I would faint at the front line. Likewise, I refused the invitation to snip the umbilical cord: I might have performed an accidental circumcision, or worse, on the squirming infant—or the doctor.

Our second child, we were told, was likely to make a speedier exit. Nine days before the due date, Sonya announced that she sprung a small leak. Time, she decided, to pay a visit to the midwife at the birth center. It was a handsome day, and as is her habit, pregnant or not, Sonya rode her bicycle. Stupendous with child, she didn't so much hop on her bike as dock with it. I noted the resemblance between my wife and the Hindenburg just before the explosion.