Childbirth Preparation Class

On Saturday Matt and I attended our childbirth preparation class. All in all, I would say it was pretty good, and I'm glad we went. I will say that I don't think I was fully prepared for the class. Even though I'm pregnant, I just don't think about birth in such detail. The class was a Lamaze-based one-day class that covered labor and delivery.

Periodically throughout the class, they would show us videos to demonstrate different topics. Now our hospital is pretty sophisticated, but they have not invested in their childbirth education class materials in a long time! They were using a VHS tape version of the video and the instructor was having to rewind and fast forward to find the appropriate topic. I had almost completely forgotten about the days of remembering the number on the VCR to tell where in the video you were. I guess birth has not really changed, so why update the materials, right? The other beef I had was that all of the women in the video were overweight. Average-sized people have babies, too. There is a difference between being big and pregnant and being overweight, these women were overweight. I guess I just wish that I could relate to the women in the video more.

Now, despite how I had difficulty relating to the women in the video, I guess I must have been touched on some level because after we watched the first birth, I was kind of overcome with emotion. It's like I have the same reaction watching a birth now that I've always had when the wedding march starts. I was somewhat unprepared for that reaction during the first video. Luckily I was sufficiently braced for the others.

A large portion of the morning was learning different breathing techniques and different positions to use while having contractions. There were about ten different positions in the book for us to choose from. Matt had picked out "lying on your back with your legs elevated" as the one for us to try. Nothing about this position sounded appealing to me particularly considering that lying on your back is not recommended after the first trimester. I resisted this suggestion for a while, but finally gave in. Well, after making my way to the floor and attempting to lift my legs up still thinking that this is not a position I want to be in when actually in pain considering the difficulty while not in pain, Matt says, "There are no pros listed here for this position, only cons." We quickly moved on to a different option. Luckily, we found a few alternatives that sould work when the time comes.