Samantha's first blog

Posted By pamelamyers on July 25, 2009

Well, we attended our childbirth class today.  It went surprisingly well considering we had no idea what to expect.  There were probably about 10 couples there besides us, and for a while it looked like a baby girl convention!  We were asked to introduce ourselves, and to state, among other things, whether we were having a boy or a girl, if we knew. I think the first 5 couples were having girls!  But then it evened out and a bunch of boys were announced.  I think only one couple didn’t know what they were having.  A few couples were due the day after Sam, but no one shared her due date.

For such a marathon day at the hospital, we DID learn a lot.  So…what did we learn?  Well, I learned about the many stages of labor and h0w long they generally last, and how much they generally hurt, for one thing.  But then the next section was about all of the pain relief options available to me : )  I still think I am going to see how it goes as far as au naturel, but the epidural is definitely an option! I am not crazy!  We also learned the relaxation techniques that are supposed to help you focus and get through your contractions…hmmm….we’ll see.

We watched the childbirth video, which they kindly played immediately before lunch, which Mark and I thought was pretty funny.  It wasn’t that bad (I think I’ve seen worse on TLC).  I have to admit I did start to tear up when the baby was actually delivered.  There is something so amazing about a baby being born no matter whose baby it is.

The last and probably the most important thing we learned is that if your birth coach (i.e. Mark) faints at any time and hits the floor from seeing anything, hospital policy is that he MUST be taken to the ER for a concussion workup.  So….our instructor kindly let us know that, please, guys, if you are going to keel over, please sit in a chair, or your wife may be very angry that you are being carted off when she is in labor!

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