Childbirth Class - 1 down, 3 to go...

Ross and I had our very first childbirth class last night. A 3 hour long class, the first of four total, with a childbirth educator recommended by our OB practice. This past Sunday we had a newborn care and CPR class with her and in a couple of Mondays we have a breastfeeding class. Yes, WE have the class - I asked the woman tonight if Ross should come and she "strongly encouraged" it so he has begrudgingly complied. The class is basically just a generic class. I considered checking out some different methods of natural birth to see if we wanted to go to a more focused class but due to the fact that NYC makes these types of classes prohibitively expensive, we opted for the generic option.

We are definitely learning a lot from the class. Ross had never seen a real birth before so he got the privilege of seeing that for the first time tonight. Her videos (yes, everything is on VHS) are a tad outdated and the woman in the birthing video looked like my high school Journalism teacher, but it was a pretty positive video to watch. There was no crazy screaming or moments of panic in the woman and it showed her using a birthing ball and moving around a lot, two things that I've had in my head as extremely important to my birth experience. And the woman did it naturally, which I was happy to see. I've been reading a lot of books about natural childbirth, such as Active Birth and Birthing the Bradley Way, and I've been trying to take from them various techniques so I can make my own combination that will work best for me. Plus, as an added bonus, since I buy most of my books from the Amazon used marketplace none of them are the latest editions so the actual birth pictures in them are of couples from the 70's and 80's which is highly amusing. I like to show Ross the photos of the birth partners in short jogging shorts and gold chains and also frighten him with the general "hirsuteness" of the woman involved.

Now, our birth educator is really nice but she definitely has some quirks. First off, she is extremely New York. Ross thinks that everything she says sounds aggressive and pseudo-threatening. Like "Yoose need to walk around during your labor...why don't yoose walk around a bit!?" Ross's impression is much better. Also, her snacks are negligible at best. Who puts out a plate of Ritz crackers with nothing to put on them? She also makes coffee during the middle of class and makes a point of announcing that the coffee is ready. Then, last night when I got some coffee she said "oh well I have decaf tea for the ladies if they want that." I've had 1-2 caffeinated drinks per day throughout this pregnancy and I don't plan on stopping now. I actually once considered writing a blog post called "For the Love of Brie - One Woman's Pregnancy on the Culinary Edge" talking about all of the forbidden foods I have eaten while pregnant and how little Cash is perfectly fine. But whatever, that's a whole other rant for another time.

So next week we get to try different labor positions and are supposed to wear comfortable clothes. That should be awkward. If only I could discreetly take pictures...