Cattle call for comments: did anyone learn anything outside of ordinary common sense during their childbirthing classes? Was it worth it? And I don't really need a tour of the labor and delivery wing as I plan to be pretty heavily sedated during those days.
My birth plan, as follows:
Watch Kris enter the times and length of contractions into an Excel Spreadsheet while I lay on the kitchen floor on bags of ice like UGA.
Get into the Expedition (this will take effort, I might need a ramp)
Turn on the cooled seats.
Hope to tell the difference between the cooling seats and urinating on oneself.
Guide my directionally challenged husband to the hospital/ allow navigation system to do the talking.
Arrive at the hospital- use valet parking.
Glide to room in wheelchair
Afix robe to ensure last vestiges of modesty. Apply last coat of Bare Minerals.
Wildly exagerrate pain as to entice doctors to give me demerol regardless of how dilated I am
In a demoral fog, use visualization techniques to prod cervix into dilating
Receive epidural
Quit. (To include: crying and screaming and irrational behavior regarding pushing so as to receive C-section) Do no underestimate my awesome quitting powers- I am not a fourth quarter player.
Get more epidural for C-Section
Get C- Section
Hold Baby Ben.
Nap.
So as you can see I've got it all figured out. Classes would just be a waste and they might mess up my birth plan.
Who needs class? Let's steal your dad's Porsche and go to the Cubs game. **** It would appear the verdict is in, officially so after Zack weighed in. I've never heard a voice come through a blog comment so clearly. So we're all in for education and we will certainly be better off for it I'm sure. (And the class does come with baby CPR for all bean related incidents or more likely in our house: hot dogs. Kris: "When can babies eat hot dogs?" Me: "Never! When they're old enough to go to the fridge, take them out and boil them in water! Haven't you seen Field of Dreams?" One promising development, well two. First Christina sent me the funniest and informative 1,668 word email I've ever received on what to buy and what not to buy. I am ready for all retail preparation now. Seriously I feel like I'm more prepared to have a baby having read that email. She=genius. Secondly, at the Easter bulletin stuffing extravaganza, the ladies were talking about kidney stones and comparing it to child birth. Well let me tell you, I have it on good authority from women who get kidney stones and have been pregnant that labor pains are exactly the same. In fact the authoritative one in the group informed me that if I can handle kidney stones childbirth will not be as bad. She said think of your worst kidney stones: (done, the time where I nearly blacked out while driving and had to pull over and came to on my hands and knees throwing up in a farmer's field in Connecticut? And then upon finally making it home, blacking out in the kitchen. That one? Yes I've got it.) She said it will be like that but instead of constant pain that doesn't go away, it will let up and I'll be able to breathe. And even if they don't let up, it's like that anyway. So it's nothing worse....Woot woot!
8 comments:
I'm thinking I'll have a program written in matlab, or I may just write a program on my trusty TI-86 engineering calcuator. Either way I will get yelled at for doing something like this.
Hahahaha. You are hilarious. Do people still take those classes? I thought that was just on tv. What the heck do I know? I'm not giving advice, just wanted to comment that knowing you - I think you can just wing it. Sounds like you two have a good plan.
you really don't want my opinion....Let's just say that i am for education in whatever form it takes. You can use some og what youlearn later...
Hehe, your plan made me laugh. Bill and I took the 8 hours on a weekend type class. Can't say I learned much at it, but it was hilarious seeing the dads practice diapering and swaddling baby dolls. And the teacher made them massage us. :) Breathing exercises? Ha. Like breathing makes pain go away!
Oh, two things I did learn.
1.)They passed around the vaccuum extractor and had us suction it on our arms to show how it doesn't hurt. This turned out to be very reassuring to me when they had to use it on Aubrey during her delivery.
2.) How to get from the parking lot into the hospital, up to the L&D floor. Call me silly, but I was afraid I would mess up somehow and go the wrong way. And they did have this special after hours buzzing the security guard to let you in process. Since we got there at 9pm on a Saturday night it was helpful to know.
Anyway, in my humble, been through this only once opinion, I got a lot more out of reading many books than I did out of the class. When you are in labor your brain doesn't work for thinking anyway.
However, Bill did not read any books so the class was probably helpful to prepare him for his job since he was the only lucid one during the birth process.
(sorry for the book)
Wow, hmmmm. I would like to think that the classes ease you into the transition of being a parent... but reading books seems like a good idea, too. Yeah, the classes might be for people without such a rock-solid birth plan. At any rate, I am wholly unqualified to give a comment, so, ummm, yeah.
I have to speak up in favor of the classes, especially the newborn care class. Even though most of it is common sense, and I am the President of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Epidural Fan Club, it was still nice to learn about everything and see the hospital and meet the nurses and have a general idea of what you're in for.
Take the class -- for Kris more than for you. He needs to see what's going to happen and where it's going to happen so HE doesn't FREAK OUT on the big day. Seriously...coming from someone who nearly passed out in the delivery room (apparently Jean was breathing and I wasn't), the feeling that you have a basic idea of what's coming next is tremendously helpful.
Also, I would suggest taking a baby cpr class. Help me save Alexander when he was choking on a chick pea...just don't ask what I was doing feeding a 9 month old whole garbanzo beans...they must not have covered that in class...
Kris: "When can babies eat hot dogs?" Me: "Never! When they're old enough to go to the fridge, take them out and boil them in water! Haven't you seen Field of Dreams?"
Also, when you finally do allow your child to eat hotdogs, you're supposed to remove the skin and even then, monitor them closely (you have to do the same thing with grapes), because they are the perfect size for windpipe blocking (this from my FIL the pediatrician). Also, glad to be of service. I'll be sure to include your first batch of methamphetamines with your baby gift.
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