Birthing Classes 1 & 2
I'm late on this posting so I'll incorporate both our first and second birthing classes in this post. It's not very organized but tough.
We're delivering at Rex, so that's where we're taking our birthing classes. There are 5 classes, and this is roughly what they cover:
- The stages of labor
- The stages of labor w/video, tour of the facility
- The stages of labor w/different video, medicated childbirth options
- ? can't remember
- All about C-sections
It was good to understand exactly what happens during labor. I guess all these years I thought that when they said labor lasted for 20 or 30 hours, they meant you were pushing that whole time. That's not the case. The pushing phase lasts about 2 hours, at most. The rest of the time (prior to pushing) is what appears to be the really painful part, and that's the natural and uncontrollable bodily reaction as the cervix dialates and thins and the contractions of your uterus begin to push the baby towards the birth canal. I guess a little bit of understanding goes a long way. By the way, we had the same teacher and she showed us the same funny chart as Ele posted about.
The video we watched last night, which was not very graphic according to Ele, really does make you walk out of the room thinking that natural, non-medicated childbirth is within reach. But, I'm still planning on getting an epidural at this point. Better living through science is what I say.
We spend half the class practicing relaxation techniques and getting to tell our partner how we like to be massaged, touched, and supported when we're in labor (most of us are just guessing since we've never done this before). It's nice to have that focused time and an opportunity to learn from each other and I think it helps Dave and I be closer.
What I found as I watched the video of these couples beginnning labor through the final stages of pushing to seeing them afterwards with their little babies was how real this really is. For the first time, the birthing class is causing me to think of time after pregnancy. It's going to be really weird. It's hard to stand outside of your pregnancy and realize that this is just a means to an end, not the end goal. I got a little emotional watching these couples, the wives relying so heavily on the husbands for emotional and physical support, the women finding inner strength to cope with the pain, and the baby being their end reward. That's when the real work starts!
On our tour, we got to see a birthing room, which basically looks like a fancy hotel/hospital room. The post-partum rooms are supposed to be very similar with more comfortable beds. We also got to see some babies in one of the nurserys, and the girls all laughed as they saw this experienced nurse pick up a baby and tuck him under her arm like a football to give him a little bath in the sink. I know we'll all be treating our babies as if they are much more fragile!
And lastly, I'd like to complain about this undercurrent of feeling I get from people who hear you don't want to have a natural birth. It's this subtle-yet-definitely-there feeling that you're not a real woman/real mother if you choose to have a medicated birth. What's up with that? I know there are many things, not just pregnancy related, but parenting related and more, that are really divisive, and this is one of those things. But it still annoys me.
Comments
In college, I took a Human Sexuality course and our professor showed us three videos of births to give us examples of what you can have, what is not cool, etc.
One was an agonizing home (NO THANK YOU!) birth where the woman was just getting off on herself being hardcore and taking the pain--which I honestly don't care about if that's your ticket, but she was incredibly too patient with all things and laid there and writhed and screamed instead of calling an ambulance. To the detriment of her husband who was SO upset about her pain, but understood this was what she wanted, that he didn't know what to do so he just sat there and wiped her face and wiped her face and wiped her face and wiped her face and wiped her face and wiped her face and she never complained once. Another point to prove her insanity.
The second was a hospital birth and the woman was lying FLAT ON HER BACK on a TABLE. Not a birthing table but a table. Like a flat, collapsable table. She was having an awful time because she had no leverage and no gravity on her side. All the doctors were milling about with their overly important tasks and the husband, again, was beside himself with grief but didn't know what to do about it.
The third was a lovely birth, if 70s videos, where everything was fine and she got an epidural and her husband was kind and calm and the doctors were pleasant and knowledgeable and there was pain and sticky goo but there was also a baby at the end and his mommie kissed his sticky, gooey face and all was well.
#3 please.
I have a friend who delivered at home for her second baby and she used some combination of witch hazel and something else in a bulb syringe which she douched with from close to her due date until her water broke (I think that far) and it softened her cervix allowing for a much more bearable process. She's pretty granola so Idk if that's medically sound but it worked and she got on her shins and leaned forward and hummed her way through the contractions and birth. She said it was not very painful (as these things go) at all. Her husband, who is not quite as granola and def not as airy, attested to the same thing so she may have been onto something.
Totally laughing out loud about this!