Our Second Childbirth Class

Yes, you will probably get an update on our childbirth class every week until they're over. But once again, this is just a way for me to process all that I'm learning, so skip this post if you want.

Our second class wasn't quite as good as our first one, to be honest. I continue to like our instructor, but she definitely became more vocal about some of her beliefs when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. For instance, she believes that ultrasounds aren't really okay, including the fetal monitor during labor. What??? I have NEVER heard that one before, but now I have a nice long article on the topic. She understands that doctors feel they are necessary to check on the growth and development of the baby, but she doesn't feel like they are safe. She also believes it's a horrible idea to have "vanity ultrasounds" like 4D ultrasounds or ultrasounds to find out the sex of your baby. Obviously, she knows we have already had ultrasounds done (we'll have another one tomorrow - love our doctor!), but we did decide to keep the fact that we're DEFINITELY doing the 4D ultrasound at some point to ourselves. I'm totally okay with the whole ultrasound thing!

She also told us more about her personal beliefs about nutrition . . . a lot of the stuff I've heard or read about lunch meats, artificial sweeteners, fish, etc. I pretty much ignored this part because I know how I feel about all of that and have a doctor that has been COMPLETELY supportive in those decisions - even helped form a lot of my decisions. Basically, I'm not a nervous mom when it comes to what I eat. I prefer to avoid artificial sweeteners in real life, so that hasn't really changed, but I don't worry if I accidentally get some. And I've never once gotten sick off lunch meat, or know anyone who has, so I'm still good with that one too. Really, the only thing my doctor did ask me to stay away from was all of the "big" fish, including salmon. Ironically, she told me that most of those were okay and to only stay away from the "predator" fish. Needless to say, I was looking forward to getting past this part of the class.

Now on to the good stuff . . . We got to talk a lot about Vernon's role during the birthing process. She asked us a lot of good questions and got us thinking about a lot of things we hadn't considered. It's funny what you don't think about when you're a first time mom getting ready for this kind of stuff . . . like what are we going to do when I desperately need Vernon to be by my side and he desperately needs to go to the bathroom? Anyway, it got Vernon thinking about a "back-up" plan. We also started thinking about what it will look like for me to have false labor and how that will effect Vernon at work. Lots of good things to think through and come up with a plan! It makes me VERY happy we have a workbook with all of these things written down in them for us to reference again. We all know I certainly can't remember these things for too long of a time period!

The other thing that I LOVED about this class was the video that we watched. The name of the video is "Childbirth For the Joy of It". Not sure where or how someone can watch it. Anyway, it was straight from the 70's and it showed the natural, drug-free deliveries of 5 different babies. Since it was from the 70's it was all very modest. What grabbed my attention though is that they were very calm deliveries. Having a mom who was a lamaze teacher, I have seen some childbirth videos. They weren't much like this . . . much more graphic, not quite as calm. While I have to keep in mind that I saw these other videos as a young girl, nowhere near having children, and that fact probably made them a little bit more disturbing; I'm also aware that the graphic, not-as-calm videos are also real life. It was just so nice to see births that were very calm and relaxed. Not only were these births calm, they were FULL of joy! Seriously, these women were so giddy about giving birth and feeling their baby come through their bodies. Some of them were almost euphoric. It was just a beautiful thing to see, to be honest. As I watched, I just kept praying that I would have that kind of joy in giving birth to my sweet boy. My pregnancy has been so joyous thus far and I deeply desire a joyous birth, whatever that looks like. This video definitely encouraged me to continue my prayers for a joyful and exciting birthing process.

I get to increase my exercises this week, keep working on getting my protein numbers high and keep working on physical relaxation. In a week or so, we'll add in mental relaxation techniques as well. I'm looking forward to that. Overall, the class last night was beneficial, I just had to get past all of the "junk" that I had to sift out. There is definitely a "sifting through" process with a lot of the information, but I'm glad to get all the goody out of it and leave the rest behind. I also need to order our list of recommended books . . . guess I should quit blogging and get on that! In case you're curious as to what they are though, here's the list:

"Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way" by Susan McCutcheon
"Husband-Coached Childbirth" by Robert Bradley, MD
"The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" by La Leche League International
"The Baby Book" by William Sears, MD and Martha Sears, RN