So everyone has little stereotypes about pregnancy. You know, asking about the due date, the sex, the name, commenting on the size of your bump, the stride of your waddle. When you start coming into the homestretch, people like to breathe at you.
Lamaze-style breathe at you. Because suddenly, when you're in the last month of pregnancy, everyone seems to become an obstetrician. They'll be able to tell if you've "dropped," and will be sure to let you know whether or not you have. In case you couldn't tell yourself after carrying the Mexican jumping basketball right beneath your areolas for nine months. They'll tell you how much you're expanding with every sighting. As if you couldn't tell from the increasing strain on the thin skin of the area of your stomach formerly known as a belly button. And they'll ask if you went to baby class and learned to breathe.
Give 'em a hee-hee-hoo for some kicks and giggles.
It's obviously highly encouraged that you take baby classes when you are pregnant, and they want you to sign up for them somewhere around week 28. I had that all set up. Then I went in the hospital during week 28. So we took baby classes later, around weeks 31-33ish. And my advice? Take them.
Not so much for the information, because honestly, it seemed to me mostly like an auditory version of what you've read in your pregnancy bibles and labor binders, complete with old posters and DVDs full of some graphic footage set to calming Native American spirit music.
Don't take them so much for the breathing, either, unless you are taking a straight-up Lamaze class. We did not; we took a regular three-week childbirthing class. And, yes, we did get some breathing exercises, but nothing like you are picturing. I wasn't breathing through my teeth with bulging eyes. It was a much quieter, subdued affair.
And while there were some nice little sessions of practicing labor positions that involve my husband giving me back massages with soda cans or tennis balls (which, as weird as it sounds, really DOES feel good), that's not really why you should take classes either.
Take them for the other people. If you're into building a little community of support and womanly festiveness, you can find it in a class. If you're like me and have no interest in forming bonds with strange women just because you've all got life inside of an increasingly huge yet seemingly too-small-for-baby uterus, then you get to sit back and observe the wonders of procreation.
For example, I learned the following from my baby class:
1. My instructor can work the phrases "Mmkay?" and "In addition" into a three hour class over 160 times. No exaggeration, because I kept a tally.
2. Opposites really do attract--one couple consisted of a self-proclaimed starving artist and a mathematician.
3. Sometimes, people entirely fit stereotypes. The starving artist wore sweatpants tucked into Uggs every class while asking a million questions about how to avoid all things medically advanced to ensure completely natural childbirth while her mathematician husband wore brown blazers with too short pants and wire-rimmed glasses. Another couple looked like young models. The guy was Russian and the girl was Scandanavian. She wore heeled boots with tights even though she was in her third trimester.
4. Eye patches are not birth control. A woman in my class was wearing an eye patch. And I have no idea why because she never explained it. And it still bothers me today.
5. Eye patches just may be an aphrodisiac. Her Steelers-obsessed and scrawny hubby constantly had his arm around her to rub her shoulder. He couldn't keep off of her. And I couldn't stop staring.
6. The older and uglier the guy, the more into his pregnant wife he acts. Our class ran the gamut from Russian hottie to Chunky Monkey. One of them mentioned hospital food as a perk to labor. Guess which one.
7. The older the couple, the more seriously they take the practice labor positions. And some of them you don't ever want to witness in person. Like accidentally seeing how they conceived in the first place.
So you see? Childbirth class can prepare you for birth not only by giving you every tidbit of info on the process of labor and the different types of delivery (although I still don't know where I pick up my woman who will soothingly recite an empowering poem over Enya chants) but by giving you plenty to picture and laugh about with your husband while writhing through those earlier labor pains.
Oh, and one other thing I learned that is immeasurably important: women want epidurals. Including me. So, thank you, childbirth class, for giving me such important lessons...mmkay? In addition, I hope you all find that little eyepatch of wonder in your worlds while you control your breathing to focus and relax.
Or just scream like hell if you want. At this point, you've earned it, right?
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