Prepared Childbirth Class

On Saturday, Dave and I attended an eight hour "Prepared Childbirth" class sponsored by Kaiser and YWCA. Overall, the class was informative and helpful. I'm way too tired to write cohesive paragraphs, so I'm going to go with a bulleted list.

• We completed an entire stimulated labor from the early stages at home, to riding in the car, getting to Kaiser, checking in, delivery and pushing... It was the end of the day, but kind of "fun." Pushing was interesting...
• Breathing techniques were fascinating. Dave was MUCH better at it than I was--every time we practiced the patterned breathing, I got dizzy (I was breathing too deeply, but couldn't figure out how to correct it). "Ah hee"s need to be practiced at this house.
• The instructor spent a huge amount of time talking about the benefits of massage in late term pregnancy and labor. LOVED this--Dave has been wonderful in this area for the entire pregnancy, but now he may even be better :)
• We reviewed the stages of labor--dilation, contractions, etc. This was a pretty good review of everything I've already read. I still can't really see how something so small is suppose to get so big, but God made us as incredible creatures!
• We covered all the medical interventions that you can choose or that could happen in an emergency and how Kaiser feels about them (inducing, augmenting labor, epidurals, spinals, c-sections, forceps/vacuum extractions, tearing vs. episiotomy). She also showed us all the actual pieces of "equipment" they'd use; seeing the epidural needle was cool because it wasn't nearly as bit as everyone makes it seem.

The part I didn't enjoy so much:

• The instructor wasn't really organized in her presentation and it was driving the teacher in me nuts. She literally told us what she was going to talk about for an hour and half, brought up the same topics over and over again and started three stories that she never finished.
• It was very hard to sit down for eight hours. I must have put myself into 200 positions. We were in the front of the room (shocker, right) so I didn't notice myself, but Dave told me that every other pregnant lady was doing the same thing. My tail bone hurt so bad that I was tenderly sitting the rest of the evening and all Sunday.