Becca and I went to Crestwood Hospital tonight for our first of four childbirth classes. Crestwood is where we are planning on meeting our son. The class had 15 couples, most pretty young first-time parents like ourselves.The instructor, Denise, started by going around the room asking everyone about their goals, fears, and what they hoped to learn. A surprising number of ladies were essentially just afraid of pain and had the goal of "as little pain as possible." Some went so far as to say, "By any means necessary!" Becca and I were relieved that there were a few mothers who were interested in attempting a natural childbirth (no interventions unless truly medically necessary). One of them even mentioned that she was interested in HypnoBirthing, so that it made Becca feel a lot more comfortable mentioning it herself.
HypnoBirthing: We're going to try it!
We got to watch an extremely funny stand-up (or in this case, sit-down) from Bill Cosby on the whole pregnancy and childbirth experience. My favorite part went like this:
Bill Cosby: Isn't that the baby's head?
Doctor: Yeah, but it's stuck...
Cosby: Well get the salad spoons!
The video is here: Bill Cosby, Himself (Sorry, readers in the distant future, if this link doesn't work. I bet you can still find the video online though! The internet must still exist, since you are reading this blog.)
He made a lot of faces like this...
In the class, we covered things like: how to know if you're in labor, what symptoms of late pregnancy are normal and which ones you should call the doctor about, relaxation techniques, etc. It was a pretty good class.
We stayed a little after class to talk to the instructor. We wanted to know if we could expect the nursing staff to have ever heard of HypnoBirthing. Then we found that she had actually birthed her second baby using HypnoBirthing! She said it was great, her best birthing experience, and the only reason she didn't do it for her third baby was because it had to be induced for medical reasons and she couldn't keep up. Another success story, very reassuring!
Finally, I asked her whether she recommended a doula, and whether she thought couples who hired doulas were generally happy that they did so. She was very pro-doula, and that went with my natural inclinations that we should at least really consider hiring one. So maybe there'll be another post here on that some time in the near future!
As time passes, we only get more excited! We love our little buddy!
Becca. Awesome. I'm thrilled to read that there are some other "hypo-birthing" freaks there ;) No, really, love that the instructor had not only heard it but promoted it. That's so great. I would have NEVER believed it myself had two friends that I trust and are very down-to earth normal people had not reccomended it to me and both told a similar story (and they both don't know one-another either -so from different areas of my life it came up as totally viable). Both did it with their very first child. Anyway. It will be a feather in your cap and may prove very useful. I"m glad you have support for it there :)
ReplyDelete