Childbirth Class

I cannot do math anymore… it is going on 12 hours for the day and I am just done. So instead I will write.

David and I attended our last of 3 childbirth classes last night at Central Baptist Hospital. Even though we are delivering at UK (since our deductible is waived there, sweet!), Central Baptist offers free childbirth classes to anyone and they had a natural birth class option while UK only had the “normal” delivery class. Our class was called “Laboring the Natural Way” and was 3 weeks long for 3 hours each. It was quite the commitment during this INSANE time in our lives, but we both think that it was well worth it.

I went into this class thinking, “I want to take the natural childbirth class because they will teach me important things like breathing and positions that I will probably need even if I do get an epidural, you know in the early part of labor”. I knew that ideally I would prefer to give birth naturally because, well, it is more natural. However I seriously, seriously doubted that I could ever do it. I mean, my body has kind of been fighting me on this whole pregnancy thing already, I really feel that I have a low pain tolerance and most people in my family and that I know rave about the effectiveness of the epidural. So in the end I figured I would most likely break and just take the pain meds.

Another motivation for going natural that I had before going into the class was kind of a selfish one. Considering the fact that I will be starting the spring semester a mere 4ish weeks after the baby is due I am terrified of having a C-section. Obviously if that is what needs to happen for our baby girl to be healthy that is what will happen. But I would like to avoid this major surgery which takes 6 weeks to recover from in any way possible. And the fact of the matter is that any kind of medical intervention increases your changes for a C-section. It may just be by a little bit, but the chances go up. So I thought that if my one of my biggest fears was this surgery I should try to go without anything that would make the chance of a C-section higher.

But to be honest, I went into the class just on the fence. The first thing that the awesome nurse who led the class made clear was that you can’t be on the fence about going natural. You have to be determined to do it. This doesn’t mean you are sad if it doesn’t happen, this doesn’t mean you “fail” if you need drugs, this doesn’t mean you put your baby at any unnecessary risks for the sake of your “plan”. However, if you ever want to have a chance of going all natural you have to be committed. It has to be your plan A. So right from the start I was challenged, and David and I really had to think about and discuss what we wanted.

We learned a ton from the class and it was really wonderful! Even though it was definitely a little bit scary to hear about the whole birthing process it was comforting at the same time. SOOOO many women have had babies, and a lot of them have had babies without any kind of medication. It was really neat to be introduced to the perspective that what we call “pain” during childbirth maybe should not be regarded as such. Normally when we are in pain something is wrong and our brain is trying to tell our body to do something about it. But during childbirth our bodies do exactly what they are supposed to do and nothing is really wrong. I mean, I am sure the process doesn’t feel good, and one of the great things about the teacher was that she was very honest in saying when she delivered her 3 children naturally it definitely hurt, but she explained it as being a different intense sensation than pain. She said that if I can just keep in mind that nothing is wrong, that my body knows what it is doing and that it was actually made to do this the perspective on the “pain” really changes. I think that this was the first time I was convinced that the physical strains brought on the body by childbirth could actually be endured. I had knows others to do it… but I guess I just believe now that anyone (including me) has a chance.

During the second week of the class we learned different breathing techniques and positions to use during contractions so that you can focus on something else. I think that all of them will be really helpful and I was so impressed with how good of a coach David is! We had different stations that we rotated to and at each one we would hold an ice cube to represent the pain of the contraction for 30, 60 or 90 seconds and then try the different techniques to take our minds off the sting. It was a helpful exercise for sure. We also learned about the different stages of birth, watched a few videos and did a few relaxation exercises (which David and I inevitably fell asleep during). What I liked most about all of this was that the teacher kept saying how you have to just focus on one contraction at a time. Previously when I had thought about giving birth naturally I would quickly get overwhelmed by how long I would be hurting, and how after one contraction there would come another, and then another, etc. But it makes so much sense that by splitting the experience up into a lot of small goals, by only focusing on the current contraction and not the hundreds that lie before you, a person can get through hours and hours of labor.

After really learning about the process of childbirth and all of our options our Plan A is definitely to try to go all natural. This means I will hopefully begin labor on my own rather than be induced, try to labor for as long as I can at home so that I can eat, drink and move around as I please, and then once we get to the hospital try to not get an epidural. Ultimately we want a healthy baby and that is all the matters. In no way will we put our own ambitions and plans above this priority. But, assuming that all goes well we are excited to let my body do what it was made to do in the most natural way possible.

Any comments/encouragement/questions would be much appreciated! I am definitely nervous about this decision but at the same time I think that it is the right one for us. I feel most comfortable with this plan and I am so happy because David is being a huge supporter as well. It is just so crazy that this baby inside of me will someday be here… outside of me. I am so excited, scared, anxious, happy and overwhelmed. I just can’t wait to meet our baby girl!