Well, I guess it is official now...we had our Preparing for Child Birth class ALL day yesterday. What an INTENSE day!!!! The class started at 9:00 AM and went to about 4:30 PM. Basically the class is designed to get you and your "support person", aka Henry in my case, ready for the miracle of birth......ummm..yeah... I think I am more afraid/nervous now than I was before...I think the thing that is freaking me out the most is just that I am not in control of deciding when Alex wants to come. HE is in control. I guess I need to realize that this is only the first in a LONG line of decisions I won't be able to control anymore....
Anyway, we learned all about the different stages of labor...yes there are 4 stages of labor believe it or not, some relaxation/breathing techniques, all about a vaginal birth and c-section birth, what to pack for the hospital, what types of services the hospital provides, the different types of medication available to me out there, and then the class was topped off with a tour of the labor & delivery unit as well as the maternity ward. In the maternity nursery, we saw a baby that was literally about an hour old. She was so cute and small and sleeping so peacefully. It is hard to believe that in a little less than two months from now, Henry and I will be responsible for one of those.....
The instructor also told us that I needed to decide on a focal point for the pushing part of labor. She said in many cases, a woman's focal point is her support person. Henry was so sweet throughout the entire class...although I think I will milk this for everything it is worth since it will probably be the last time he gives me and sort of massage.... Anyway, we decided that Henry can't be my focal point because we kept making each other laugh...maybe it was just the class setting, but we couldn't get serious and every time we looked at each other we would just bust out laughing..not the more appropriate response..
The other cool thing that happened was there was a former pro-basketball player (and his wife of course) in the class. He used the play for the 76ers and it was Todd McCallaugh (sp?). He was HUGE...7'0 feet tall...he had to duck to get through the doors and he barely fit into the chairs that we had to sit in. He looked VERY uncomfortable! When we went around the room, his wife said that they were inducing her in 2 weeks because they were afraid that baby would be too big...no kidding...The funniest part was when we were in the nursery looking at the babies and Todd asked the course instructor what would happen if his baby didn't fit into the warmer because he would be too big...we all got a big kick out of that.
I do have to admit that he was very nice. We followed him and his wife out to the parking lot at the end of the day and he held doors for us and when we passed them to go to our car, he said "Congratulations and good luck to you..." He seemed like a very down to earth nice guy.
SO, I guess I am "prepared" for labor now......this should be an interesting experience...Henry and I decided that for both of our sanity, drugs will be involved in the labor part of our hospital stay....
No comments:
Post a Comment