"At this point, Emily was due to deliver our first child within two weeks. And like the majority of first-time dads I was in the throes of delivery-room anxiety, which included a fear of fainting in what I imagined to be a sea of bodily fluids.

This selfish anxiety paled in comparison to what Emily would face in the delivery room. But my fears had already evolved into an imaginary scenario I could not get out of my head: Me fainting and having my pathetic self wheeled out of the delivery room as I try to whisper "sorry" through the oxygen mask --- all of which would be followed by my eternal humiliation.

I took comfort in the understanding that I wasn't alone. Generations of American men have faced my anxiety and shared my ignorance and lived." (Loftus, "A dad's delivery-room anxieties", MSNBC, Jul.15)