Like a lone reed.....Childbirth Class #4

Childbirth class #4 was last night. We covered pushing, placenta delivery (everyone in the class laughed at the video portion of this part because family members of the mom were taking pictures of her placenta), c-sections, and practiced labor positions again.

Tonight's personal highlight was an exercise we did towards the beginning of the class. The women had to leave the room for a minute while the men were instructed to do something. We came back in, and this time the men left. When we walked back in the room, on the floor we saw a series of numbers in a line. The numbers were +5, +3, +1, 0, -1, -3, -5 in that order. Here's the basic description of what each number stood for:
+5 = I want an epidural as soon as I walk in the hospital door. I want to feel nothing during delivery.
+3 = I want to progress on my own for a little while (with narcotics if I want them) and then get an epidural.
+1 = I want to progress as far as I can, but am open to an epidural if I need one.
0 = No opinion
-1 =
-3 =
-5 =
To be honest, I can't remember exactly what the last 3 stood for, but they were varying ranges of "I want no meds" to "Under no circumstances should pain meds be offered to me during labor." Anyone who's been following understands why I didn't really pay close attention to these choices.

When we left the room, the men were instructed to stand on the line according to where they thought their wives would stand. Before that was revealed, we (the women) had to go stand on the line according to our pain med wishes. I stood at +3 (let's be honest here, I really wanted to stand at +5, but figured I'd put on a brave face) and everyone else crowded down towards the -5 end of the line. The first thing that popped into my head was that line "Like a lone reed" from You've Got Mail. Everyone looked down the line at me and I just looked back at them. No judgment from anyone, but it was just....interesting. Then the men joined us at the spots they'd chosen. P stood between +1 and +3. Hah, good one P!

The point of the exercise was to see if all the women were on the same page regarding pain medication options as their husbands. Perhaps P and I have some strange relationship, but it never occurred to me to consult him on whether or not I choose to have an epidural. Until he gets to feel the pain, he doesn't get a say in it. Maybe that is sexist, but I can't help the fact that evolution handed childbirth to the women.

Last night was also interesting because the couple whose baby was born at 34 weeks came back to tell us their birth story. Baby is currently at CHKD, but should be home in a couple weeks. I didn't know this, but Williamsburg's hospital doesn't have a NICU so any preemie babies are sent to St. Mary's in Richmond or CHKD in Norfolk. The most interesting part, to me, was the mom telling us about how she decided, at 10cm, to ask for an epidural because she was so tired and couldn't take it any longer. She said "I'd never done any research on epidurals...." <---Ladies and gentlemen, there we have it. My point from the very beginning of our adventure in "natural birth land." Here I am, pro-doctor, pro-modern medicine, pro-epidural, taking a natural childbirth class. Educating myself about no intervention, labor positions, breathing, etc. And all the crunchy moms are doing nothing to educate themselves about all the other possibilities, which of course they'll experience should any of them end up with a c-section or possibly in more stressful of a situation than they anticipated.

For all the "birth is natural" and "our bodies were made for this" business, I find it extremely interesting that the only person in the class doing research for herself (again, the whole "do your research" thing is really pushed by the natural birth folks) is me. I "hee hee hee'd" with the best of them last night while holding the ziploc bag of ice cubes in my hand during our labor position practice, but I'm still asking for the anesthesiologist.

(I supposed you could argue that taking the childbirth class, which briefly mentions epidurals, is "doing research." In my opinion, that's not really enough to consider yourself educated on the subject though."