Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Last night we went to Lamaze Childbirth class. It's a condensed version for two Monday nights from 6-9. We had to come all the way to AA, since our suburb has very few classes for some reason, even though everyone has like 3 or 4 kids. It made for a very long day but the class was suprisingly informative and interesting. I guess it should be for $138. Out of 8 or 9 couples in our class, we were the oldest. By quite a bit. I forgot for a second that most people our age are on their second or third child at our point in our lives. Another thing is that I thought we were really late in scheduling class, but most of the other couples were due in a few weeks and the rest in June.

It started with some relaxation/stretching exercises that I loved and P wasn't so crazy about. We also got big circle name tags that reminded me of preschool, but were actually "10 cm", to represent the cervical dilation during childbirth which was a real eye-opener. That's wide, but when you look at the size of a baby's head, you wonder how it is ever going to fit. Another eye-opener is that an epidural dulls the pain, but you still feel the pressure and burning. We got down and tried some birthing positions - I liked the birth ball a lot. We also learned some exercises to help move the baby into a head down position. I do most of the them already at the gym, so that was most gratifying to me. That is a big concern for me currently, that the baby move into the correct head down position, because I.do.not.want.a.Csection. I'd rather try a breech birth, but my hospital doesn't do that.

Who'd have thought I'd be at a Lamaze class? Not me :)