I have a pile of things to blog about about and one of them was this quote from the book Fathers at Birth:

“Labor is like stairsteps. There is an incline, then a plateau. Another challenging incline, and another plateau. The inclines get steeper and more intense as labor progresses. The plateaus get shorter. However, in deep labor, the incline can go straight up, off the charts, without a plateau. Sometimes women are very close to pushing when this happens and do not know it.”

As a father-to-be, if you notice inclines with no, or very short plateaus, you will know that your baby is very close to being born. Reassure your partner about the wonderful job she doing, how great everything is working, and that she is getting closer and closer to meeting the baby!