birthing class

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." (I Peter 5:7, NIV)

I have a confession to make: In my heart of hearts, I want my husband to be my be-all and end-all. I wish he could be everything I need, everything I want, everything that ever mattered to me. And I've been burdening him with that expectation, that wishful thinking, for a while now. But that's too big a task to ask of any human, and I was reminded of that today. I can't ask him to be that; I can only ask God to be that for me. And I need God to remind me that he, not Al, can fulfill my every need: Al is more like a bonus, one of the ways God is fulfilling my needs and cares.

You may be asking yourself what this has to do with the title of the blog, "birthing class." A lot, actually, at least the way my mind works. If you read my previous blog entry, "racking up the nerves," you'd know that I have a lot of "anxiety," or worries, about getting ready for and actually becoming a mom (both in terms of birth and beyond). Both attending an all-day birthing class and getting a generous offer from a friend to talk, shop, and help me prepare calmed my nerves tremendously. But that doesn't mean there weren't any nerves left, and those that are tend to get taken out on my husband. I expect him to be this super-human, caring, omniscient individual who will understand and give me exactly what I need. When I don't get it, I get all sorts of unreasonable and hormonal: I yell, I cry, I become impatient--generally, I'm a monster. And since I hate that unreasonable side of myself, I do just the wrong thing and take my dissatisfaction with my own actions out on him even more. It's a vicious cycle, and it's got to stop. So I'm trying to remember--daily--to take my anxiety to God instead of my husband. God is strong enough to carry that burden (and it's a heavy one). Al needs the freedom to be human.

Anyway, birthing class. Birthing classes come in many forms and cover many different topics, but Al and I chose to take an all-day seminar through our hospital. I know others who go for an hour or two a week for six to eight weeks, but that just didn't fit in our schedule. I thought our class was very informative and I would highly recommend that anyone who is nervous like I was find a local class and take it. But look into what they discuss, first. My physical therapist, who is three weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy, ended up in one that started talking about the first and second trimesters, which she'd already been through. Our class started with a talk about labor, contractions, responses to and treatments for pain, and relaxation techniques. We went on to discuss several other things throughout the day: medical terms related to giving birth, our anatomy (how is the baby typically positioned in the uterus, and how in the world does it fit through the pelvis in a vaginal birth?), specific signs of being in labor (including the timing and length and strength of contractions), comfort techniques for getting through labor, medications (painkillers and epidurals), and cesarean sections and possible reasons for them. The day was filled with breaks and short videos in which they show everything (and I do mean everything). We had chances to ask questions whenever we wanted, too--the entire thing was led by a qualified nurse who shared her own experiences giving birth to three children as well as giving us the technical details.

I'm not a medical person, so I won't go into the details myself other than to say that a lot of what we talked about is covered here. I will repeat what she said about knowing when to go to the hospital and what to do while you're waiting, since I want to remember these things myself. She said that we should wait until the contractions are five minutes apart and remain so for at least one hour, and then (if you can) wait another hour after that. The reason for this is that early labor usually takes hours for new moms, and you need to give your body time to get effaced and dilate. You could be having contractions five minutes apart but only be dilated one or two centimeters, and you need to get to ten centimeters before you can deliver the baby. So what to do if you think you're in labor, but your contractions aren't close enough together yet? Here are our nurse's suggestions (again, keep in mind that these are just notes and I'm not a medical professional--or any type of medical person--at all):

• Drink every hour (juice, water, etc.)
• Eat if you're hungry, but choose small amounts of carbs and avoid greasy or spicy foods (they may make you feel sick later)
• Rest in between contractions at night
• Move around in between contractions during the day

When contractions become a bit more intense (i.e., between twelve and fifteen minutes apart), get yourself moving. Take a walk around the block if it's nice outside. Don't do anything as extreme as spring cleaning, but do move--it'll help your contractions along. But at this point you probably won't want to talk or walk while you're right in the middle of contraction; just do the activity in between.

When they're ten minutes apart, take a nice, warm shower or bath. The warmth can help soothe you. Personally, I wouldn't try a hot tub; there are too many cautions against using them while pregnant and I don't think it's worth the risk. But showering could refresh you after all of that movement and help you to feel better about yourself and the condition in which you arrive at the hospital. And when you have reached contractions five minutes apart (and I should note that these are timed from the start of one contraction, through it, and to the start of another) and waited at home an hour or two to make sure they aren't slowing down, go to the hospital. Nurse Lynne cautions that you should drink juice on the way since you won't be getting anything but ice chips once you get there. But just having this level of detailed advice helps calm me, because it gives me a plan of action: something to do while I wait.

Of course, I can't cover seven and a half hours of material in a few-paragraph blog, so I'll save the rest for your own birthing class, should you choose to take one. But I will tell you this: I'm even more resolved to do my best to make it through without pain medication or an epidural and am praying that I don't have to have an episiotomy or accidentally tear during birth--at least spare me a little bit of the pain of those recoveries! Here's to a prayerful attitude and wishful thinking.