Wednesday, November 03, 2004
The reality of it has finally sunk in; this baby is on the way. Amazingly enough it wasn’t the construction we’ve done to build the baby’s room nor all the clothes, toys and stuff that made everything concrete for me. No, it was the all-day, rapid-fire birthing class we took last Saturday that did it.
Most of you with are no doubt familiar with Lamaze and the breathing exercises it teaches you, but unless you’ve had a baby or have one of the way, you probably don’t know what these classes are like. For starters, the Lamaze classes are a bit of the past. The latest craze involves a combination of breathing techniques and labor education. And what education it is. But we’ll get to the scary part of the birthing class in a bit.
My wife and I were both very hesitant to attend any birthing class, even more so when we began looking at the options and duration of some of these classes. The recommendations in many of the books we read said to start looking into birthing classes by the five month of the pregnancy. There were many options and when we finally settled on the one we felt was right for us, Isis, we were then surprised at the duration of these classes. Given our rather urgent need coupled with the fact we had no desire to commit to a half dozen sessions at three hours a clip, we opted for the seven-hour cram session.
So we settled into to our all-day Saturday class a mere six weeks out from our due date. Needless to say we were worried that we would be far and away the furthest along in the class. So, we were pleasantly surprised to find the 11 other couples in our class to all be around the 35 week mark.
The class was as advertised, a cram-session. We spent the early part of the class going over what to expect as we approached labor. The first funny moment came when we hit the relaxation and breathing portion of the program.
The instructor, who was great no doubt because she had six kids of her own, instructed us to grab floor mats and all lay down next to our partners. It was the ultimate icebreaker as trying to fit 24 people on the floor lying down had as al in cramped quarters. I was just thankful nobody had gas, a substantial concern in a room full of pregnant ladies. She shut the lights off and ran as through the typical picture yourself floating on a raft in the ocean type exercise. And it was very relaxing, so much so that I feel asleep. Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.
This all led to her demonstrating a babies birth using a creepy doll for the newborn, a knitted uterus that could have doubled a winter hat and some nylon thing for the placenta. It was a good presentation of the steps, albeit, a rose-colored presentation of the real thing. It was all leading up to the great finale, the video.
Yes, we had the pleasure of ending the day by viewing the video of three different women giving birth. It didn’t pull any punches and was certainly pretty graphic, blood, pain, guts and all. I was fascinated by it more than anything and it served to really get me more excited about the birth of the child. This wasn’t the case for everyone.
I made it a point to see how some of the other couples were reacting to the video and I was surprised to see a couple of moms-to-be actually covering their eyes for the most reveling parts of the births. Made me wonder how they were going to get through he real thing.
I guess my only complaint was, not to be too shallow, I wish they could have found some more attractive couples for the video. But as I overheard one couple saying, would you agree to appear in the video if they asked you? The response: not for a million dollars. Makes sense to me.
Most of you with are no doubt familiar with Lamaze and the breathing exercises it teaches you, but unless you’ve had a baby or have one of the way, you probably don’t know what these classes are like. For starters, the Lamaze classes are a bit of the past. The latest craze involves a combination of breathing techniques and labor education. And what education it is. But we’ll get to the scary part of the birthing class in a bit.
My wife and I were both very hesitant to attend any birthing class, even more so when we began looking at the options and duration of some of these classes. The recommendations in many of the books we read said to start looking into birthing classes by the five month of the pregnancy. There were many options and when we finally settled on the one we felt was right for us, Isis, we were then surprised at the duration of these classes. Given our rather urgent need coupled with the fact we had no desire to commit to a half dozen sessions at three hours a clip, we opted for the seven-hour cram session.
So we settled into to our all-day Saturday class a mere six weeks out from our due date. Needless to say we were worried that we would be far and away the furthest along in the class. So, we were pleasantly surprised to find the 11 other couples in our class to all be around the 35 week mark.
The class was as advertised, a cram-session. We spent the early part of the class going over what to expect as we approached labor. The first funny moment came when we hit the relaxation and breathing portion of the program.
The instructor, who was great no doubt because she had six kids of her own, instructed us to grab floor mats and all lay down next to our partners. It was the ultimate icebreaker as trying to fit 24 people on the floor lying down had as al in cramped quarters. I was just thankful nobody had gas, a substantial concern in a room full of pregnant ladies. She shut the lights off and ran as through the typical picture yourself floating on a raft in the ocean type exercise. And it was very relaxing, so much so that I feel asleep. Fortunately, I wasn’t caught.
This all led to her demonstrating a babies birth using a creepy doll for the newborn, a knitted uterus that could have doubled a winter hat and some nylon thing for the placenta. It was a good presentation of the steps, albeit, a rose-colored presentation of the real thing. It was all leading up to the great finale, the video.
Yes, we had the pleasure of ending the day by viewing the video of three different women giving birth. It didn’t pull any punches and was certainly pretty graphic, blood, pain, guts and all. I was fascinated by it more than anything and it served to really get me more excited about the birth of the child. This wasn’t the case for everyone.
I made it a point to see how some of the other couples were reacting to the video and I was surprised to see a couple of moms-to-be actually covering their eyes for the most reveling parts of the births. Made me wonder how they were going to get through he real thing.
I guess my only complaint was, not to be too shallow, I wish they could have found some more attractive couples for the video. But as I overheard one couple saying, would you agree to appear in the video if they asked you? The response: not for a million dollars. Makes sense to me.
