Childbirth Class

We went to our first birthing class tonight.  Yay!

At 15 weeks, mine was the youngest pregnancy in the room.  I thought that might be the case.  But the next class for multiples is in February and in the Seattle area, February can get really screwy with weather issues.  Since I'll be hitting my 7th month in March, and sometimes twins come horribly early, I wanted to make absolutely sure that I got through these classes before the actual birth.

So the teacher commented that I'm being really proactive and she loves that!  At which point K and I had to contain our laughter.  If you've read my "Mama drama" post, you'll remember that one of my bad mommy offenses mentioned was that I wasn't proactive enough in my childbirth planning and labor prep.  So an official pbbbbbttt! to the perpetrator of the mama drama.

It was a very talky talky class and a lot of videos.  The first video was very talky talky about how it's difficult to be pregnant and men being supportive of their women.  Good on them.  But not what I want to learn about.

They showed us a C-section.  ACK!!!  I couldn't watch that one.  The squick factor was just too much for me.  It think it's an empathy thing.  Even though I know she wasn't in any pain, the brain still can't get over that she's being cut into and there are gutsy things coming out with the babies (ok, I peeked) so I go all squick.  If I get a C-section, I have no intention of watching it.  Put up a little curtain and show me the babies once they're out!

And they showed a video of a natural birth.  The squick there wasn't nearly as bad.  It was edited to make it seem like it was the easiest thing in the world.  I think they may have edited out a few screams and other discomfort sounds.

Most of the questions were answered with "it varies so much with multiples that you'll have to ask your doctor for their preferences and about your particular situation.  But here are 5 different possible answers based on the most common variables."  So yeah, no matter how much we learn, unless we do a scheduled C-section and the babies decide to stay inside until that date, it's pretty much going to be played by ear.  The best they can do is kind of educate the various players who'll be playing.

There was some discussion about nutrition.  And I'm finding that my doctor is really chill compared to some of these other doctors.  They are being told to get x number of protein, etc etc. whereas I'm being told if I'm eating decently, it's all good.  Then again, many of them started getting these nutritional directives around 18 weeks so I might find that my doctor assigns some directives to me as well when I'm further along.

I'd say that my pre-pregnancy diet was about a 10 out of 100 on the quality scale.  Seriously, my nutrition sucked.  But I'd say that my pregnancy diet is about 80 out of 100 simply due to tastebud changes.  So that's one hell of an improvement.  I try to add another point or two every week.  Changing to decaf at Starbucks.  That added a point or two.  Tomorrow I'm going to try a protein bar for breakfast instead of a bagel.  That's a point or so.  So I'm getting better but if I go for perfect, I'll go nuts so we just won't stress about that.

Then the last 10 minutes were deep breathing and visualizing your babies hearing your voice, etc etc, while getting massaged by the hubbies.  I had trouble not giggling.  Seriously, I tried.  Really I did.  But I just can't do the visualization thing.  And the picture your babies in their nice, comfy, warm sack blah blah blah.  I understand and respect that some people find that kind of thing very moving and profound, but it just makes me roll my eyes and giggle.  I didn't do that in class though!  I played along like a good girl!

I've got no decent closing sentence.  So, I'm done writing now.