Hey Servant,
I can definitely relate. When I was 16, I was working 10 hour days, surviving on bottles of Tylenol, and eventually begged my Mom to take me to the doctor, which is something I NEVER do. Long story short--my appendix had been broken for 3 days, and by the time they operated, it pretty much exploded during the process. I was in the hospital almost 2 weeks and kept getting a fever, so they wouldn't let me go home.
I was still lying in my hospital bed about 10 days later, and the doctor came in, looked at the incision, and said without any emotion, "There's an infection in here." The next thing I know, the nurse came in the room, and without any warning or numbing procedures of ANY kind, they proceeded to cut and RIP OUT THE STITCHES right then and there. I was literally in a state of shock. They then allowed the entire incision to heal the rest of the way in its newly forced-open form. I told my Mom I didn't think I would ever walk again. They had been a day away from operating a second time. And the doctor told me that even 10 years earlier over 90% of people would have died from the kinds of complications I'd had.
I would imagine that pain is a mere fraction of what it's like to have a baby. I know I'm a bit biased here but I am definitely with the ladies on this one.
I've heard accounts of grown men being reduced to crying, blubbering messes at the passing of a 5mm (that's about 3/16 of an inch) kidney stone.
All I can say is that any man who says he has little to no fear of an event he will never experience himself that consists of forcefully extracting a 14 to 20-inch, 6 to 8 pound living, screaming human being from the lower extremity of the body, is most certainly... a breed of man all his own.
