So just for memories sake as I plan on printing out all of my blog posts and putting them in my scrapbook, I’m going to write about yesterday’s class. Other than Ben falling asleep, it was pretty uneventful. If you want to skip this, feel free.
The day started out not so great. The night before, we didn’t go to bed until around 2am and then around 5am I woke up with a horrible leg cramp, which I’ve gotten a few times this pregnancy. Stretching wasn’t helping, so I got up to walk it out, but was almost in tears it hurt so bad. Why oh why do babies cause leg cramps? They’re not in your legs! Actually, today in the class the instructor mentioned try getting more calcium and potassium, so I’ll try that.
Anyway, of course I couldn’t fall back asleep because I never can when I wake up in the middle of the night. At least not for a few hours. Unfortunately, through my pain I woke Ben up too (not on purpose). Usually it’s him waking me up by accident when he gets into bed at night. Or me waking up to go to the bathroom for the upteenth time that night, or the dogs moving around, or my hip being numb, or … well, the list goes on and on.
So anyway, we were both up and neither of us could fall back asleep. Finally, around 6 or so I fell back asslep, but apparently Ben stayed up. I woke up again at 7:30 and he was still up. At that point I figured it was useless for him to lay down at all because if he fell aslseep for just an hour, he’d be so grumpy when he got up.
So, we got up and got ready and decided to go to iHop for breakfast. After stuffing ourselves with omelets and french toast, we head to the hospital for the class. I felt so silly walking in with two pillows and a blanket, but luckily there were plenty of others there as well.
The beginning of the class was fairly stupid. Everyone there is 7-8 months pregnant having their babies and they spent an hour telling us what not to do while you’re pregnant. I think if you’ve been smoking or drinking for the last 7 or 8 months, you have a problem. It was definitely not info that needed to be covered in a childbirth class.
After our first potty break, she got down to business basically going through the labor process, breathing techniques, etc, etc, etc. She had everyone practicing the breathing from their tables, including the men, which was quite funny.
Around 12, we broke for lunch. I had a small salad and Ben just had nothing as he was full from iHop (where he had eaten all of his breakfast and half of mine!). If we had known we were getting a free lunch, we may have skipped iHop. Then again, maybe not.
After lunch, we had to watch a couple of childbirth videos. Of course I has crying by the end of each of them. Out of happiness for the mom and knowing that I get to meet my little baby soon or fear of the pain in the next couple of months I don’t know.
I’m not sure what Ben thought of the videos, but he’s watched A Baby Story with me a few times, so he wasn’t totally unprepared. Well, except for the fact that these were extremely graphic videos, unlike A Baby Story. In one of them, the dad actually pulled the baby out, which Ben made clear that he would not be doing.
After the videos, she lectured a bit more. I can’t remember what about .. maybe the stages of labor, etc? I know she went through your pain medication options and covered c-sections a little bit as well. We had a couple more potty breaks though and got some oreos from the free snack basket. I had forgotten how good oreos can be!
At the end, we all had to get on the floor and actually practice her breathing techniques. She had the men squeezing our arms to mimic a contraction (um, really?!?!?!?) and then we had to “breathe” through them. I’m sure if that were really how it is, the epidural would not have been invented. Oh, which brings me to the fact that I had no idea that you had to get to 5cm before you’re allowed to get an epidural.
The next exercise she had us do was some massage/relaxation thing. We had to concentrate on a body part and relax it and then dads had to massage it or something like that. At one point she asked us to tense up areas and the dads had to find them using massage. I don’t see this one working for us very well either. LOL I can just see Ben when the time comes telling me that his hands are tired.
The last thing she had us do was some imagery technique. She had us all lay down, including the men, and she told this relaxing story about a day at the beach. It was so relaxing to Ben that the next thing I heard (he was behind me) was him snoring. No joke. He and another guy in the class fell asleep.. though Ben was the only one that snored.
I’m not sure how much we really got out of this class. Ideally you always think you’d like to be able to get through this with just relaxing and breathing, but I’m a tense person by nature. I have a very hard time relaxing on a normal basis and just don’t think that breathing and imagery are going to take my mind off of what’s happening. I guess we’ll see when the time comes, but despite the fact that several people have tried to convince me to go drug-free, I have a very good feeling that won’t be happening.
Next up (9/2) is our hospital tour and yet another appointment. Actually, starting September 2nd, think we have a class every single Thursday night for 4 weeks.