Picture a roomful of men kneeling next to their supine and pregnant wives, blowing whistles in their wives' faces, barking at them to breathe, even calling them "maggot."�

We were "coaches"� now, after all, in the eyes of our birthing-class instructor. It would have been so easy to get carried away and act the part. (Although I for one would have preferred to have been called "general manager."�)

As it was, however, the scene never quite deteriorated to that at Women & Babies Hospital on a recent Saturday. It got ugly, mind you, but for other reasons that we will come to.

About two dozen of us, expectant couples all, gathered in a second-floor room in an otherwise quiet wing. Here, we were safely shielded from the main hub and the blood, sweat and tears -- the overwhelming joy, too -- most of us would know soon enough.

Half the men in the classroom wore Penn State jerseys, as I recall, the other half did not. No matter. All of us wore nervous, slightly pained expressions.

For my wife and me, the football atmosphere would be most apt, it turned out. It was a long day -- roughly eight hours -- of preparation for the Big Day, the birth of our first child.

Birthing classes, especially all-day ones, are not for everyone. If you read some books; if you talk to friends who have given birth; if you ask questions of your doctors and midwives; and if you have a stepfather who is a retired obstetrician-gynecologist, you may not need to waste your time (and miss the big college football game). Old-timers, be happy that in your day, all you had to do was show up at the manger.

That said, our instructor was a very nice and knowledgeable nurse. She guided us ably and cheerily, giving us strategies, informing us of the power of "hee-puff"� breathing, wherein you inhale -- "hee"� -- and exhale -- "puff"� -- in a rhythmic way, easing the discomfort of labor. Theoretically.

But none of this, and none of the horror stories I had heard in advance, prepared us -- steadied us -- for the childbirth video, which we watched immediately before breaking for lunch.

(Now, doctors, nurses and serial killers can look at viscera and then sit down to a meal. The rest of us, however, will be seeing pepperoni and placenta pizzas in our bad dreams forever.)

Squeamish, I found the gore disturbing and distracting. In fact, it gave me labor pains, I'm convinced. "Hee-puffing"� till I was blue in the face would not have helped me. On the Big Day, I will be in big trouble.

My wife, on the other hand, a health-care worker, was upset not by the carnage but because the video brought home oh so explicitly that she soon will be forcing out of her body not something the size of a caviar pearl but of a country fair watermelon.

Yes, there was enough blood and goo and full-frontal nudity to satisfy both Stephen King and Larry Flynt. It was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"� meets "Debbie Does Dallas."� Extreme reality television, in other words &tstr; raw, no Lucasfilm special effects, no Meryl Streep-type performances.

Was it educational? Sure, in a sense. Rent it at Blockbuster or download it on YouTube, kids, and I guarantee the teenage-pregnancy rate will go down to nil.

Walking out into the lunchtime sunlight, a little shell-shocked, like a wide receiver after a rough play, my wife and I resigned ourselves to going back in there.

But a couple or two didn't make it back. I can understand that. Guess they decided to punt.

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The Voices column is written by a rotating team of New Era staffers. It appears Mondays.

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