Pregnant ladies

[peach]

Are Wawa and I the next ones due to have babies??? We are both due the week of February 20th...

[sjh722]

I think so, I am a few weeks behind you (3/8).

[peach]

I am starting to get nervous....my doctor said that if things go like my last labour, I can expect to have a 5 or 6 hour labour quite likely. Eek! I really hope I don't go into labour while home alone with 8 kids..although I have a plan in place for it just in case.

[wawa]

Oh, really, we're next? Shit. I thought somebody else was before us, but I guess it was just bunny.

It's starting to feel really REAL. Like, for serious, I'm going to produce a kid out of this come hell or high water and they are actually going to send us home with the thing. Alone. And then we have to figure out how to keep it alive.

I have NO IDEA HOW TO DO THAT. We'll ignore the fact that I've been around tons and tons of babies. I have changed plenty of diapers. I have fed lots of bottles. Still...suddenly freaking out.

speaking of the labor part of all this - when you were a FTM, did you take any kind of childbirthing class or read any specific books or anything? I've kinda just figured that L&D will just happen as it happens, but my midwife suggested I at least do some reading. I mean, I know the basics as outlined in WTEWYE, and I was upclose and personal when my sister had her first baby (as in I was holding a leg and yelling, Holy Crap! There she is!!) so I'm not totally clueless, but I suddenly FEEL totally clueless.

We're touring the hospital in a few weeks, but that's mostly just "vending machines here, this is where you go to sign in, tell visitors to go there, etc etc."

[peach]

Wawa -

Yes I took a birthing class. They covered the signs of labor, what to expect in each stage. Did the breathing techniques and made us practice positions for labor, like squatting holding a chair, using a ball, laying down, etc. They also covered breastfeeding basics, how to care for the cord and how often to feed, etc.

honestly it was great to have some tips on what to expect for when the baby came. How to clean a penis, how to care for the cord, how many wet diapers are normal, etc...

The labour stuff I did not use at all. For me, I found that my body naturally knew what it wanted to do. They said once you go into transition to start the really fast "hee hee hoo" breathing. Bullshit. For me, it helped to breathe long deep slow breaths the entire time....I would close my eyes and focus on breathing as slow as a possibly could and try to have the contraction end before I got to 10 breaths.

I also spent most of my labor in the tub. It was a huge pain reliever...I never used any weird positons, massage, or anything. I had a labour playlist on my ipod and didn't touch it. In the moment you know what you want...you will just know if you want to rock back and forth, or sit on the toilet, or whatever. you don't need a class to teach that.

I think you can't really prepare for an experience like that. I was expecting to be a bawling mess screaming for drugs...in actuality I went like into a trance state...totally silent, eyes closed, gripping someone's hand and laying in the tub.

If you want to take a birthing class, I think it's a good idea and you will get some good tips and info. But you would also do just fine without! You can plan all you want for how you think it will go, and then when you are actually in labor you may want the exact opposite!

And ---it was the worst pain I have felt. It was about on par with some other horrible pain I have had - gallbladder attacks and dislocating my knee. But I handled it. And it went quickly, and when it was over the first thing I said was 'That was it? I could do that again!"...I WAY over dramatized it and the idea of labor was so scary and I made it to be way worse than it actually was. Barring any complications, or horrible back labor or something like that....you can totally do it and it will probably be 10 times easier than what you have worked it up to be in your mind.

[thewop]

Ditto everything Peach said. I didn't really experience labor the way they portrayed in the class. I had crazy back labor, which they didn't really talk about, and the techniques they taught didn't do a damn thing for me. I went from nothing to contractions a minute long and 5 minutes apart in one hour, so I didn't experience early labor (that I could tell anyway). I was an epidural girl though (no shame. totally worth it for me), and all I really had to do was get to the hospital. LOL. The c-section info they went over(cause you never know) and newborn care were helpful.

[housegeek]

I've got awhile. I'm pretty sure I'll have this kid in a car though, my last labor was 2 hours, first contraction to last push. H works an hour away and the hospital is 30 minutes away, so I need to come up with a game plan hah.

"The Birth Partners Guide" and Ina Mays books were extremely helpful and informative to me for my second, I learned things I didn't know even having gone through it before.