Ever since Saturday I have been meaning to sit down and unload all of the thoughts and information that have been swirling around inside my head since the childbirth class Rob and I attended. Unfortunately, daily life has a tendency of getting in the way of blogging sometimes so I’m a bit behind, but if I may, I’d like to blame part of my absence in blogland on Jillian for stealing away two precious hours of my Monday evening. And as if that isn’t bad enough, she had to make the unfortunate decision to send Reid home, which is something I will never understand because Reid is a Hottie Two-Shoes.

(P.S., Jill, I have no words for you and will never figure out why you prefer men in hot pants over men in sexy spectacles. Is that a Canadian thing? Thank you and goodbye forever.)

Anyway, walking into the classroom Saturday morning at the hospital, Rob and I had no idea what to expect from the childbirth class. All we knew was that it was going to take up an entire day of our precious weekend, albeit a gorgeous, sunny day which we could have spent out by the pool soaking up summer’s precious rays. And when our instructor – a hunch-backed, gray-haired, eighty year-old lady – came walking into the room we really questioned whether this was going to be worth our time or not. I didn’t need some old hag barking breathing techniques at me all day.

But when she introduced herself and started talking to the class she immediately charmed us. She may have been old, but she had a spunky personality and over forty years of experience as a labor nurse. She knew what she was talking about and had seen a lot of births in her day. She even had a really cute way of pronouncing ‘baby’ so that it sounded more like ‘baybay’, which made the day a little extra entertaining.

Throughout the class she hit on a whole slew of topics: female anatomy and why we feel the way we do when we’re pregnant; labor “stations” and dialation; pain management; relaxation techniques; c-sections; contractions. We got the lowdown on the whole shootin’ match and she held nothing back.

But best of all she had some sweet visual aids to accompany her lectures. The prop she used most often was a baby doll named “Penelope” that was able to fold up all fetus-like and represented a seven pound baybay. She then used Penelope, along with a very graphic spandex contraption meant to represent a woman’s pelvis and nether regions, to demonstrate the the way contractions contribute to a baby’s birth, and what I really mean is HOW THE BAYBAYS MANAGE TO SQUEEZE THEMSELVES OUT OF THE HOO-HA.

Can you please picture an eighty-year-old woman pushing a baby doll through a spandex vagina right now? Lord have mercy. It’s just about fifty-four kinds of wrong, isn’t it?

I’m not really sure why she felt she needed to use props for that, as I think we can all imagine that sight vividly enough on our own internal movie screens, but as if that wasn’t enough she then threw a video tape into a VCR and made us watch two couples from the seventies give birth. I have to say, those videos were probably easier on the eyes than Penelope and the spandex, believe it or not.

As it turned out, the class was really great and changed my whole mindset on labor and delivery. Prior to the class I had my birth plan all figured out, and to sum it up in one word, DRUGS. I planned on having the epidural jabbed into my back before I even changed into my hospital gown so that I could then spend the rest of my labor lollygagging and watching the Food Network until it was time to push.

Because I was scared of natural labor, scared of contractions, and scared of the physical pain.

Now I’m not so scared, but rather anxious, with a newfound sense of empowerment. All our instructor did was explain to us how our bodies were made for labor, and how contractions are not meant to hurt us but to help us. That the more we worked with our body – rather than fight it – the better and faster our labor would be. She didn’t try push us (PUN!) to have natural labors, she just simply gave us the facts.

I left the class instantly encouraged.

I’m not delusional or naive enough to assume that I’m going to have a drug-free, natural labor. I am, however, more inclined to give myself a chance. I want to see how strong I am and how much I can handle. I like giving myself a challenge, and I’d assume that this is The Mother Of All Physical Challenges, Ever, even more than snatching a 35-pound kettlebell over my head. But if the pain gets bad enough that I want to have an epidural, I’m not going to feel disappointed in myself or chastise myself for ‘giving in’. 

Now won’t it be fun to come back and read this post again after I go through the whole birth experience and compare it to my pre-conceived notions? That should be a blast.