hee-hee-hooooooooo

Last night was our second childbirth class, and our first stab at lamaze. She (the midwife who teaches the class) spent the first 1.75 hours talking about the stages of labor, how to recognize signs of early and normal labor, symptoms of complications to tell your doctor about, and what to pack for the hospital. Then, for the last 15 minutes of class, she dimmed the lights and put on some soft music that reminded me of yoga/pilates classes I've taken. She had the men ("birth partners," she calls them) sit on the floor with their backs against a wall, then we sat against them like they were our armchairs. :) By having our backs against their chests/stomachs, she said we were more apt to match their breathing patterns. Then we practiced breathing through a contraction. When the contraction starts, we take a deep, cleansing breath. Then, we slowly breathe, establishing a rhythm by exhaling "hee" on the first two breaths, and a longer "hoo" on the third. She explained that during early contractions it will be easier to keep these breaths slow but that as the pain increases we'll need to speed up our breathing as well. We did all of this breathing in unison, while Ken reached around and rubbed my belly. At the end of the contraction, we finish with another deep, cleansing breath. After we did the seated breathing, we did the "middle school dance" breathing. We stood facing each other, his hands on my lower back and mine around his shoulders. I let my head hang and we gently rocked back and forth while he massaged my lower back. She explained that women often like several different positions during their contractions and that you kinda just have to be prepared to go with whatever you feel like doing. We'll be doing other positions in our future classes, which are every Thursday from 7pm to 9pm at the hospital where we'll be delivering.


So what do I think of all of this? I support breathing. Breathing is good. And I bet it's good to feel like you're in control of at least ONE thing that your body is doing during the labor process. But I still want drugs. Lots of drugs. And I'm not sure how "deep" my ashthmatic breaths are going to be, but I'm going to give it a shot. It does feel a little silly right now, though.

That being said, I AM having contractions, but they're Braxton Hicks contractions and totally normal. I don't even notice them most of the time. Just a couple of hours ago, Ken was rubbing my belly (one of his favorite past-times these days) and said "Whoa! Check out how hard it is!" I felt and sure enough, must have been a BH contraction. So glad they're not painful!