I Don't Have a Vagina

That is what I learned the other week in my hospital birthing class.

Apparently when you get pregnant your vagina is no longer called a vagina, it's referred to as the birth canal. Sexy, huh?

Hubby and I have taken a number of classes over the last four months: a natural childbirth class, child care, childbirth through the hospital, and breastfeeding. We've learned a lot, but all the information has left me feeling a little overloaded.

Since I don't want an epidural I decided it would be a good idea to look into natural child birth classes. I think I have said in earlier posts that Hubby sees this as hippiesh. Back in December I signed us up for a half day natural childbirth class taught by a dula and he did not want to go to it.

I pretty much told him tough cookies. My body, my rules. And since he is the only one I want around for the birth, he needed to understand that if I want to get down on all fours atop the hospital bed while I have a contraction, it is a perfectly acceptable position to labor in.

I had done so much research and reading on childbirth before the class that nothing was really new to me. Except at the very end. Did you know babies have been known to crawl to the breast to feed after birth? I had never heard that before. Of course, the instructor made it sound like this only happened in an unmedicated childbirth (I don't think it is. I think the trick is to do skin to skin contact as soon as possible).

This class did two things. It made me realize I actually do want a natural child birth and it educated Hubby.

The class wasn't as hippiesh as he thought it would be. And the biggest thing he took away from it was, if a woman is to get an epidural, it is better to get one a little later rather than sooner because iin can lead to interventions that could eventually lead to a c-section. So while he still thinks I'm nuts for being afraid of the epidural, I think he is more open to me trying to labor as long as I can before getting one. He is also aware that the next time I'm pregnant we will be taking a Bradley class (assuming I can give birth vaginally again after I have Little Guy). The natural childbirth class was based on that method and I have read a book on it. Everything about it makes sense to me, and backs up things that I have believed since way back in high school (such as not laboring on your back, moving around while laboring, even standing to give birth, although that scares me). (I have to give props to Hubby for also reading the book as a refersher since it's been several months since we took the class.)

The birthing class at the hospital has been Lamaze based. I don't think Lamaze is my thing. We learned breathing techniques and the altered breathing made me dizzy. It wasn't supposed to but it did. The instructor did touch on what to do for a natural labor, and some of it overlapped with what was discussed in the natural childbirht class, but sitting in a class where the instructor had medicated births and my classmates were planning on it, I just felt bored with everything. I either knew everything or I learned something new about a medicated birth that scared me.

Like the Baby Care class we took a few weeks ago, I think the hospital class has left me feeling a little less sure of myself. However, it is great to have heard about all my options regarding both unmedicated and medicated births. I feel like I can make more well-rounded decisions in how I'd like my labor to go.

In the last month I've had a couple curve balls come at me in this pregnancy and I do need to be prepared for the chance that Little Guy's birth will end up being a medicated one or that I'll need a c-section. Even though I have known that things may not go the way I wan them to, accepting that something will not be going my way is hard for me to do. I'm trying to figure out how to accept these possibilities now so I'm not brought down by bitter disappointment and anger when D-Day comes. My mom and hubby remind me weekly that I tend to get my own way (more because I demand it, not because I'm always lucky), but between my blood pressure being elevated at times, the chance my baby will be 10 pounds, and the fact that he's suddenly decided to move around into various positions instead of chilling in the correct one, I'm finding I am going to need to be more open minded and "go with the flow". I may want things to go my way, but the doctor and Little Guy may have more of a say in how the day will go than me.