Birthing Class #1

Today we started our birthing classes. There will be one a week for four weeks, each 2.5 hrs long. We decided to do the one that the hospital offers. Kyla had also been interested in a 'no meds' hippy dippy birthing class. After talking with some people that had gone through the former, she found out that it discusses the both meds and no-meds option and doesn't necessarily promote one over the other. While a natural birth is our goal, we also recognize that it is safest to have modern medicine readily available should the need arise. We are not interested in having to drive to a separate location should something go wrong during labor.

Side note: we watched "The Business of Being Born" a couple years ago. It was interesting, but I still have nightmares of Ricki Lake naked in a tub giving birth. Shudder.

There are 8 couples in our class. We started with the customary awkward ice breaker. I hate the ones where you have interview your neighbor and introduce them. I'd rather just freaking introduce myself. The couple we 'interviewed' wanted to just exchange pieces of paper instead of being interviewed. Sigh. Ice-breaker fail.

I found it interesting that exactly half the class was south Asian (Indian or Sri Lankan), whereas Austin apparently has only about 2% of those ethnicities. <racist comment>We chalked it up to the hospital's location, which is smack dab in the middle of several large IT headquarters.</racist comment> In all seriousness, though, every single one of them had a tech job (ok, maybe one of them was doctor or something). So there.

Also among the notables was a former NFL player that sat right across from me. I only mention this guy because I could tell that he found this whole class as hilarious as I did, and we exchanged many an awkward glance when something was said that screamed out for a snide comment to be made, but we knew we had to bite our tongues and let it go. And how many of those cases there were! I mean, that I got through these classes without going through fits of laughter is nothing short of a miracle. Moving on ...

The first class dealt mostly with the basic stages of labor. At the end, we did a breathing and relaxation exercise, which basically meant we turned down the lights and listened to some new age music overdubbed with an annoying British woman's voice telling us about the state of our consciousness. My favorite was when she literally paused for a full second mid-word. "You are now slipping into a state of nothing----------------ness." I just about lost it.