Reading, Writing, and Nausea

We attended our birthing class this past weekend. It wasn't at all what I pictured in my mind, from all the TV shows and movies starring pretend-pregnant people. Mom doesn't sit on a floor mat practicing breathing while dad is kneeled next to her for encouragement. (Apparently those are Lamaze classes.) Instead, we all sit in chairs, listen to a teacher, watch videos, and thumb through a workbook, just like in any other 7 hour class. Additionally, the dads don't kneel, but sit slouched in their chairs, turning various shades of red and white. The moms amuse themselves at the dads' discomfort. And the motivation for staying awake in class: a VHS tape showing live births of the 1970's.

We watched the heart tugging and stomach turning stories of several different couples. It was a time when men wore tight shirts and the women donned permed hair - they boldly revealed to the camera their varied experiences of day long labor and the methods they used to cope with it. Topics ranged from choice of painkiller to physical pushing positions. In between interviews, the tape also featured full frontal nudity, as I winced my way through four live births. Each baby I witnessed that burst forth from a loin made me progressively less queasy, and I was actually a bit desensitized by the fourth one. Then they announced the last birth story was a Cesarean, and that's when I felt all the blood rush out of my head again. Luckily for me, they omitted most of the graphic details.

At the end of the class, I learned about mucous plugs and the bloody show (which I am not linking to), Braxton Hicks (a.k.a. false labor), and many assorted numbing medications which I would have gladly volunteered to subject myself to before this class had I known what I was going to see. All in all, very informative, buy not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. To sum it up, labor and childbirth is vastly different for every woman, and from this point on, anything can happen, so I'd better have my bags ready for the hospital.

Only 6 weeks left to go; then I have to find the After Your Baby is Born class.