A Review of Birthing Class

Our 6 week birthing class session is over. Here are my impressions. First and most entertainingly: smelly boys gym shoes. The class' were several hours long and at the beginning of each session we had a practical experiential sort of thing. We did some stretching and some breathing technique practice and some lying on the floor in focused meditation. Honestly it was very like a yoga class I took in college. I quite liked it. The tendency was for people to make themselves comfortable. Which was quite useful but also, as it was a 7-9pm class and coming at the end of the day as it did, offered a rare glimpse into the stinky shoes of others. Lol. Now part of this was pregnancy nose (that fascinating ability of super smell that descends on a lot of pregnant people including myself) and part of it probably was just the hyper awareness that new and uncomfortable situations bring. It was quite funny nonetheless.

Next impression: super information dump. I really learned a great deal from these classes. The teacher was very careful to address our specific potentialities. She brought in many many medical devices all of which are used in the hospital that the class will be delivering in. She showed many videos from many perspectives and from many situations. The natural child birth people were represented along side the all medication all the time people. There was a good bit on Cesarean births and a good heap of general advice on things like what to pack for the hospital (complete with checklist) and what to expect from insurance companies. We got floor plans and maternity ward tours and parking instructions. We even got pre-admission applications so that once we all need to get admitted we can spend as little time as possible in the waiting room and get straight to evaluation and supported labor. Deeply useful. I find myself less and less in the dark and mostly that is because of these classes. I don't know if any of this will help when the time comes but it dose away with most of the pre-experience jitters. I am grateful for the class and the teacher and for David for his great support in all this exploratory stuff.