Crazy Childbirth Class

As previously mentioned, last night was our first childbirth class. We’re offered it for free through my doctor’s office, which is really awesome. It wasn’t really at all what I expected. It was held in my OB-GYN’s clinic in the lobby. They just took all of the chairs in the waiting room and turned them towards one wall where they had a TV and easel set up. I wanted to arrive about 15 minutes early so that we for sure wouldn’t be late and could get signed in if we needed to. We got there a tad earlier than that, but found that there were already about 3 couples waiting. We made good timing, though, because people started to pour in from there. I’d say that there were about 30 couples in all. To preoccupy us while we were waiting, they put on an old comedy sketch of Bill Cosby describing the birth of his children. It was pretty funny.

During this time, we also got our nametags and signed in. And in every chair was a small diaper bag with a bottle cooler inside. It also had some sample ointments and lots of pamphlets and information. There were handouts on the steps of labor, symptoms that you might experience, what causes them, and how to treat them, directions to pre-register at the hospital and where to go once there, and descriptions of positions to alleviate pain while in labor. We each had a lifesaver too.

When we started, we had to go around the room and state our names, how many weeks pregnant we were, if this was our first kid or not, and then there were three questions which corresponded to the color of your lifesaver. My question was “What is the best and worst thing about pregnancy?” and Jesse’s was “What is your greatest fear about labor?” For me, the worst part has been continuing to throw up every single day of my pregnancy, but the best part is just being pregnant in general. I briefly stated that it took us a long time to get pregnant and that we feel very blessed to be so and are just excited about it. For Jesse, his biggest fear is just seeing me in labor, going through so much pain, and not really being able to fix it for me.

After everyone had gone, the instructor, a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital where we’ll all give birth (the sister hospital of my job), began with a video. The video talked about taking care of yourself late in your pregnancy, staying hydrated and resting, etc. And then it went into coping with contractions and the signs of labor beginning. It was pretty simplistic and not all too informative, I thought. But then the instructor went into more detail. She showed us a diagram of a non-pregnant woman’s body. She pointed out where the uterus is, the cervix is, and the vagina. Then she showed us a pregnant woman’s body. It was insane! Aside from just how much bigger around she was, her once tiny uterus now filled up her entire stomach, all the way up to her breasts. You couldn’t even see any of the other organs. The nurse pointed out where the ligaments are that attach the uterus and how these stretch out and cause round ligament pains, describing how you might feel if you were experiencing that. She also described the stages of labor, from when you first start to feel contractions, the timing of them, how much effaced your cervix becomes, and how dilated it becomes as well. In each stage, the contractions get closer together and more regular and stronger, the cervix thins out more and more and dilates even more. She passed around this plastic tray that had circles traced on it. Each one was an exact replica of how big your cervix will get as it dilates. Jesse was astounded. J She also talked about how these stages correspond to your activity. Certain stages last for 6-8 hours while others are only an hour or so. It’s pointless for you to come into the hospital when you are just in the beginning stages. It’ll likely be awhile before you’re ready to give birth and you’re better off trying to sleep or eat. As times goes on, though, there are certain signs that signal that you are ready to go to the hospital, and she discussed how long it takes for labor to progress from there. (All according to textbooks, of course- everyone is different.) One interesting fact I found out is that most women who do not have an epidural, push for an average of about 45 minutes to an hour. But women who do have an epidural end up pushing for up to an hour and ½ or more. So, she said that while the epidural may make it less painful, it does prolong everything because you can’t really feel yourself pushing as well. When it comes to the meds, I’m fairly open either way. I have some crazy notion that I’d like to go completely natural if possible, but I’m not opposed to the drugs if I feel like it’s necessary. I don’t really know what to expect the pain to be like. I’ve never dealt with anything like that before. So, I may not handle it all that well. Furthermore, I know that when my sister-in-law gave birth, she was too tense. So, the epidural made her relax and she was able to progress more quickly because she wasn’t so tense. If it’s a case like that, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I think, more than anything, though, I’m MORE scared of a needle in my spine than I am of birthing a baby! So, I’m planning to just go with the flow.

Anyways, moving along, after we finished that discussion, we had a short break to go to the “loo” (and yes, that is just for you Leigh) and then we saw the video of a birth. The video wasn’t as graphic as I thought, not that I cared too much. I just expected it to be head on, watching the baby come out every bit of the way, but they only showed the crowning and the rest was filmed from behind the woman’s head. The birth was also only a tiny bit of the video. The mass majority was documenting her different stages of labor and how she coped with each- taking a walk in the park, eating dinner, checking into the hospital, walking down the hallways, using different positions to alleviate pain, etc. And, when it was over, the class was pretty much done.

So, before I describe what happened shortly afterwards, let me begin with Weird Thing #1. Back up to before the class started. As we came in, I mentioned that there were only 3 or so couples and then people started coming in quickly and filling up the room. Remember that I said all of the chairs were facing the big picture window that covered the entire wall? During this time, there were 2 ladies sitting just outside at their cars, both smoking cigarettes. One of them was very obviously not pregnant. The other one looked quite pregnant, but since she was already a rather large woman, you could excuse away the round belly as just fat…. that is, had we not been AT A CHILDBIRTH CLASS! I kept thinking that maybe she was just in the parking lot for some other reason, or maybe she was with someone else, but not pregnant herself…that is, until she came inside, sat down, and during the opening introductions, announced that she was 35 WEEKS PREGNANT!!!

Now, obviously, smoking during pregnancy is an absolute no-no. In fact, one of the videos we watched specifically said that it can cause early labor. It’s extremely frowned upon in our culture. But, the truth is that many people do consume alcohol and smoke during their pregnancies. But the nerve of someone who would do it right outside their childbirth class, in front of the labor and delivery nurse, and 30 other pregnant women appalled me! Maybe my perspective of her was already skewed because of this, but I quickly came to the conclusion that this woman and her “friend” bothered me a lot. I say friend in “ “ because in the very liberal town I live in, they quite likely were more than just friends, and they did some weird stuff during the class which made me uncertain. For example, during the video, the “friend” laid her head on the other woman’s belly and cuddled with it. I suppose this could just be a sign of friendly affection or bonding with the baby, but it’s still odd and distracting nonetheless. But what bothered me more was that this woman had no whisper voice. She and her friend talked through the class making side comments to each other, but in their normal voices!

When we had our break to go to the “loo” :-) , they went back outside to their cars. This time they sat inside the cars, though. I leaned over to Jesse and asked if he thought they were smoking again, which was a repulsive thought to him. I added teasingly, “You should ask them to leave because they kinda bother me.” Well, he didn’t have to do anything at all because they then closed their car doors, started up their engines, and drove away, without even finishing the class! It was probably a relief to most of the people there, but still odd. I’m curious to see if they come back next week…

Ok, so fast forward to when the class was dismissed and enter Weird Thing #2.

The weather in Oregon is generally cold and rainy 9 months out of the year. And the rain isn’t cool, like with big thunder and lightning storms. It’s dark and drizzly, day after day. Albeit, it is because of this rain that I live in such a beautiful state. Anyways, during the summer season, it does warm up, some days the temps getting into the 90’s, but it’s more likely to be between 70-80 degrees depending on the month. However, we’ve had a recent spell of warmer, sunny weather after it raining for awhile, which has created several lightning storms recently. Jesse and I went outside the other day and sat at the park, watching the lightning strike in the distance. It wasn’t raining, though, or cold. It was fairly warm and the storm was a ways away. So, last night, as class was getting out, it had started to rain and lightning was striking. We raced out to our cars in the rain and everyone left. We weren’t even a mile away from the clinic when we noticed that the 2 cars in front of us swerved to miss a tree that had fallen and was now blocking half of the road. We drove just past the tree, but as I looked at it, I found that a few feet past it was a motorcyclist whose bike was down on the ground. I told Jesse to pull over really quickly and I jumped out of the car and ran towards this man asking if he was okay. He was up and walking around, but all of this had JUST happened. My guess is that lightning struck the tree just seconds before we turned the corner, causing it to split in half, and the tree fell right as he passed. I’m not really sure if the tree clipped the back of his bike or if he just swerved to miss it and slid out. He was walking around and seemed fine. He said he banged his hip a little bit, but when Jesse called 9-1-1, the man said he didn’t think he needed any medical help. We still thought that a response team should get the tree moved out of the road, though. So, Jesse called anyways and left the information with the dispatcher. Within minutes of us pulling over, another car pulled into the parking lot next to the street and asked if we needed help. We had them come to help him pull his bike off the ground since he said it weighed about 800 lbs. It was then that I noticed these people were the couple that had sat right next to us in class. Out of the 60 or so people that were there, these were the only two people we had any conversation with. So, I thought it was kinda cool that they were the 2 that responded with us. They called for medical help too and were making sure everything was okay, and then while we were waiting for the response team to arrive, the guy got on his motorcycle and drove away without saying a word to us. We were all shocked, but figured he must be okay. It didn’t seem too safe to be standing on the side of the street, though, as lightning was striking around us, especially since we were right under the trees. And we were now soaking wet. We left and drove home, but the rain was POURING! The streets were flooded in only minutes and there were accident response vehicles all along the freeway. By the time we got home, we only had time to change our wet clothes and climb into bed.

What an adventure!