Prepared Childbirth

27 weeks, 4 days

When going through the class options offered by Memorial, I knew one of classes I wanted to take was Prepared Childbirth aka Lamaze. The description for the class is "an in-depth explanation of pregnancy-related discomforts; comfort measures for both pregnancy and labor; the labor and delivery process; massage techniques; positioning; and relaxation and breathing techniques to better cope with the birth." Our option was to either do 4 separate classes during the weekday or get it all over in one shot with 1 Saturday class. Fortunately, one of the Saturday dates was on a weekend that we were free so I booked it.

That morning, I packed my snacks, jug of water, two pillows and a blanket and headed to the hospital. After quite the walk to get to our room, we sign in and were greeted by a video and only a few other couples. I chose one of the seats towards the back corner because I knew we would be getting on the floor to practice positions and techniques and I preferred to not be front and center. Shocking, I know.

Our teacher for this session was another nurse in Labor and Delivery, Karyn. Similar to the teacher in our last class, she is the mother to a 42 year old, 40 year old, 34 year old....and the oops, 29 year old. I find it ironic that both teachers had an oops kid. Karyn told all of us that she recommends the oops kid because they always add something the mix. I wasn't so shocked that she had 4 kids (all of which she had naturally BTW), I was shocked that she was old enough to have a 42 year old in the first place! She looked like she was maybe in her 50s.

We got off to a great start when she told the "coaches" that this class was for them...not the moms. Cool with me! She gave some really great analogy (which both Joe and I can't seem to remember) about when you are in a pressure situation, you don't always have your wits about you, so the coach is there to take over. The coach is the person who is supposed to know you the best and be able to handle tough situations when you are....indisposed. With that, she said all our "coaches" would be taking a test.

::Cue Joe moaning:: He was not prepared to be tested.

The test was to see how well Joe knew me by each of us answering the same question. My task was to answer for myself. His task was to answer with what he thought my answer would be.

Okay, I thought. We can handle this.

A few examples:
1. What's my favorite color? (We both answered blue.)
2. Who would I want in the delivery room with me if Joe was unavailable? (We both said Rachel.)
3. What does Joe do that annoys me? (Joe said "when he paces too much", I said "when he doesn't pick up after himself.")
4. Rank my pain tolerance. (I said a 5, he said a 7.)
5. Where do I relax? (We both answered in bed.)


We got 3/8 correct. That's less than 50%, people. MAJOR FAIL.

Next up, we were instructed to find a spot on the floor and spread out. This is when my hour long massage began! Karyn wanted to cover relaxation techniques first especially when dealing with pre-term/early labor. One of the questions on our test was "How do I relax?" and my answer was massage. If that doesn't take all the tension away, I don't know what does. We were introduced to massages with me sitting upward, massages laying on my side and massages for the hands, most specifically. The coaches were instructed to massage us moms while she went on with the class. Ah-mazing! While we were getting massaged, she went over other calming techniques and positions to help progression. She really emphasized changing positions as much as possible while in labor. This whole morning session of our class covered more of the natural possibilities for labor and delivery and was very exciting for me.

Shortly thereafter, she dismissed us for our lunch break so Joe and I decided to head downtown. There was a festival going on at the visitors center so we were able to do quite a bit of people watching while we ate outside. But soon, it was back to the freezing cold room at the hospital.

Our afternoon session was a bit more of review to our other childbirth class. She did, however, discuss more in-depth the different stages of labor. Early stage, active stage, transition state, and pushing stage. One of the other couples in our class had 4 year old twins (no epidural!) so after each stage, Karyn would ask the mother to explain her experience. It was very interesting to hear. The best phase, according to the mothers who already had outside kids, was the pushing phase. They said it was more relief than anything else which I can understand. It seems like it would be the light at the end of the tunnel. I know that transition is gut-wrenching so my main goal has always been to get past that.

Our last topic of discussion was breathing techniques. When you hear the word Lamaze, I can imagine that you think of breathing. That whole "Hee, Hee, Who" thing.

My favorite (and the technique I see myself using the most) is cleansing breathes. Slow, big, deep breathes. Karyn had the coaches simulate a contraction and we had to practice said techniques. Joe's form of simulating a contraction was squeezing the skin on the side of my arm and I found that if I closed my eyes and just did deep, cleansing breathes, the pinching didn't bother me, let alone hurt. Next up, are what are called the "e hee's." (Both Joe and I think about DMB when we think of these.) This is more staccato type breathes. The "E" sound is when you inhale, while the "Hee" sound is when you exhale. She had us practice these and I was laughing more than concentrating so I don't forsee this being a calming breathing technique for myself. The last type of technique is the "Hee Hee, Who." It's basically another type of staccato breathes but with a strong exhale at the word, Who. This type was, again, not for me. It will be interesting though to see what really helps when we are in that situation.

Obviously, it's hard to focus 6+ hours of information into one blog post so I've barely scratched the surface of everything. This has been my favorite class though. It was jam packed with information that I plan to take advantage of. If I had to do over, and could only choose one class, I would take this one over all the others. I think it has really prepared both of us for what is to come.