Let me paint a scenario for you.  Imagine that, despite the exorbitant cost and almost assured hurricane, you fly off to some Carribean island for some well deserved rest and relaxation.  After a few days lounging around the pool, you head down to the local piazza and discover the BEST TOMATO SAUCE you’ve ever had.  You buy a few bottles to take back to the States and head back to the resort to try and figure out how you ended up in Sicily.  You carefully wrap your bounty inside a few paper bags,  tuck that into a sock and then try to insulate it well inside your suitcase.  And then you head to the airport, and watch as they toss your checked bag onto the conveyer belt like it was filled with packing peanuts and not little glass bottles of tasty but maximum stain formula tomato sauce. And then you have to sit on a plane for hours, in constant worrying that those bottles exploded in your bag.

In many ways, that is what pregnancy is like.  Constantly worrying about something you can’t see and/or control.  It eats at you, especially late in the pregnancy.  Little things become tiny icebergs of worry -  a small, potentially irrelevant symptom that hides hours of needless fretting under the surface.  If the baby doesn’t move as much as yesterday, is there an issue?  The baby has hiccups all the time, but not today – is something wrong?  I just sneezed twice and then had a twinge in her knee – is the fetus in distress and manifesting it’s symptoms telekinetically through me? These are the kinds of thoughts that begin to infest your waking (and in some case nonwaking) hours.

It was within this framework that we headed in for a checkup.  Our doctor’s visits have become so numerous lately that I haven’t bothered blogging about them individually.  We had switched previously from monthly visits to bi-weekly visits, and now we have to stop by once a week so that they can measure how everything is progressing.  They are mundane affairs – urine samples, blood pressure cuffs, Doppler readings (listening to the baby’s heart), and of course breathalyzer tests (I always pass – I never drink booze until lunch).  The doctor also whips out an old school tape measure and measures the size of Kim’s belly, saying things like “oooh you are getting big,” and “looks like there’s a fundus among us!”  This was ritual for us for quite some time – visit after visit.

That is until a few weeks ago, when the last test (the tape measure) came up a little short.  The doctor wasn’t overly concerned, but told us she wanted an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was ok.  We were pretty sure everything was, but we welcomed the thought of another ultrasound to get one last look at ChiBaba in the hopes we’d get some better, more human looking pictures.  Thankfully they were able to get us in that day with the sonographer we had previously with the whole “quart low” situation.  While we both liked the technician, neither of us had fond memories of the last round of ultrasounds, and so I think we both went into it was a bit of trepidation.

Kim and I reconvened for the ultrasound that afternoon, and we were quickly ushered into the sonography theater.  The woman quickly went to her task, taking all the measurements necessary to confirm that the baby was within tolerable limits.  While a little on the small side, the wriggling thing was definitely within acceptable constraints.  We breathed a sigh of relief – everything was fine…except that our stubborn little offspring was laying in the breech position.

For those unfamiliar, the breech position basically means that, rather than hanging upside down in the womb like a normal child (which I thought was odd – who’d want to be upside for months?),  our bundle of joy had wedged itself with his/her head jammed just below Kim’s ribcage, with it’s butt down by her pelvis.  This is a less than ideal situation apparently, because it turns out that babies don’t come out butt first particularly well.  Imagine trying to pull an opened umbrella out of a ten centimeter round hole in the wall and you can see where that would be difficult for all involved.

A breached baby is not usually dangerous for the fetus – it just means that if, when all is said and done, the thing doesn’t turn into the right position, a pretty unescapable conclusion rears its head: the c-section.  Which, in our situation, is a worst case scenario.  Kim wants to be drug free, and a c-section is about as opposite of that as can be.  In some states, they actually administer crack-cocaine to the laboring woman to make the surgery as pain free as possible.  So this looming possibility is an unnerving one for us.

The sonographer of course told us she would relay this information to our doctor, and that we could discuss with her our options.  Kim prodded her a bit about what we could do to help Chi-Baba figure out the right path.  She paused, and then told us to hang out for a sec.  She returned a few minutes later and – I’ll never forget this – handed us some literature. “I looked up ‘tranverse breech’ on the Internet and found some pages on ways to turn the baby.” I was dumbfounded.  While I like our technician, she just Googled answers off of the Internet for us.

How much do I pay for this expertise?

In any case, we left the sonographer’s with mixed feelings – the size issue was, in fact, a non-issue.  But now we had this breach thing to contend with.  There was plenty of time for the baby to turn, but would it?  Would this whole issue cloud the big baby shower in just a few days?  Will I be able to sleep at night?

Sigh.  Damn tomato sauce.

Under normal circumstances, I would not attend such a class. There are a variety of reasons for this, most notably the long understood inability of men to breastfeed their children. I simply do not have the parts, nor do I foresee a time in the future when that particular situation will change (let’s hope). In addition to this obvious situation, there are several other notable reasons why I would not attend such a class, including the fact that I didn’t really want to, and that (again) I don’t have the parts.

In any case, it was made clear to me that I would attend the class, ostensibly to help retain the knowledge of this feminine art and to helpfully remind my wife of “latching” tips at 4 AM in the morning while our newborn child gently reminds us that he/she is, in fact, very hungry by screaming endlessly and at high pitch. I resigned myself to my fate and dutifully informed my boss, to some snickering, that I would need to miss a little work to attend the class.

The class was scheduled for right after work on a Monday, and so I jetted from my job a few minutes early, winging my way across town towards an hour of “edulactation.” I arrived just a couple minutes late, and opened the door to see my wife, our nurse instructor, and two other very pregnant women. And no other husbands. Apparently husbands don’t normally attend these things, I discovered. Perhaps because of their INABILITY TO BREASTFEED. Sigh. I took my seat next to my apologetic wife and prepared for uncomfortable conversations.

I think that if I was to give a title to the book of our childbirth experience, one of the front runners would definitely be “Interesting Characters.” Joining the long string of odd folks that have punctuated our journey, our breastfeeding instructor Janelle warmly greeted us. Janelle, in short, is VERY passionate about breastfeeding. I mean, VERY VERY passionate. Passionate in a crazy-eyes sort of way. I couldn’t help but chuckle at once again encountering such an odd soul in our birthing journey.

Janelle began by discussing every thing BUT breastfeeding. She is a very dedicated (fanatical) proponent of a concept she repeatedly referred to as “skin-to-skin.” This theory holds that newborn children perform best early in life by spending much of their time sleeping topless on Mom’s (or, in some cases Dad’s – although I think she was just trying to include me in the conversation since I was the ONLY MAN THERE) bare chest. The infant apparently will sync their heart beat and breathing to match the parent on whose chest they lay, and this process leads to a calmer, less colicky child. In addition, studies have shown that skin-to-skin babies score higher on their SATs, sucessfully answer 20% more Jeopardy questions (on average) than their peers, and some even develop the ability to telepathically communicate with small cats and rabbits. The advantage, as Janelle explained them to us, was clear and unquestionable. After the 20 minute lecture, I certainly had no questions.

After our lengthy side discussion, we finally began discussing the process of breastfeeding. I’m sure it was a deep and informative discussion, punctuated with diagrams, “Boppy” pillows, and prosthetic, knitted breasts. But I’ll be honest. I zoned out for most of it. I mean, honestly, it was a 45 minute discussion on “latching,” “proper lactation angles” and “breastpump etiquette.” I sat there, mostly trying to resist the urge to ask the questions that I could not block from my mind:

• If she eats a ton of chocolate, can she emit chocolate milk? What about strawberries?

• While breastfeeding, if one breast runs dry, does it make a sucking sound like a straw at the bottom of an empty glass? On a related note, does it deflate?

• If she drinks a ton of cow’s milk, will it still be her milk, or will it be the cow’s milk?

• I’ve heard a lot about skin-to-skin. Can you spend 30 minutes explaining it again?

Well, in any case, before I knew it, the lecture was over and the mothers-to-be were comparing notes on how awful they were feeling, how their backs were hurting, ribs were getting kicked by their unborn children, and their overall discomfort at this late stage in their pregnancy. Then they all started to look at me with those men did this to us look. I saw the writing on the wall, grabbed my wife’s hand and high-tailed it out of there before “pregnancy rage” claimed another innocent husband’s life.

Are we now 100% prepared for the challenges and rewards of breastfeeding? Probably not. But I look to history, and the success of millions, if not billions of mothers throughout time that have gotten this to work, and I have faith that we can get it done.

Or at least that Kim can. Remember, I don’t have the parts…

Now, I must admit, I did not afford this search with the proper gravity and thought that it apparently warrants. Upon hearing we needed a pediatrician, I devised the following 3 point plan to knock out this task quickly:

Step 1: Find Yellow Pages

Step 2: Open book to “Pediatricians”

Step 3: Enjoy the accolades and self-satisfaction that comes with a job well done.

This brilliant plan succeeded… in having me removed from the process of finding a pediatrician. My wife, who I believe must have headaches from the sheer frequency of eye-rolling and head shaking that comes with marriage to me, took it upon herself to undertake this noble quest, and began the laborious task of asking around, getting names, and then calling them up, one by one. I resumed my furious prenatal Wii marathon.

It’s not as simple as one might imagine to find a pediatrician. There are a number of factors to consider, including height, weight, political affiliation, whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi, fear of clowns, and of course their time in the four forty. It’s certainly important to find someone that you like considering you will be visiting them innumerable times as your little cherub grows from helpless infant to awkward teen to maladjusted rebellious college student. In our case, our top factor in choosing a pediatrician was finding one that would agree to an altered immunization schedule. Whether or not I buy the whole autism/vaccination thing, I am a little wary of shooting up my less than 1 year old child with some of mankind’s worst diseases, all at once, and so for us, the ability to space these things out was of importance.

Around here, at least, that got us labeled by a number of these doctor’s offices as being “granola,” “those people,” and even “immunowackos.” One doctor’s office that Kim called, upon hearing her concerns, declared that “this isn’t the right place for you.” Another, who we KNEW allowed altered schedules (a friend was a patient) told us that under no circumstances did they allow it. One office even told us that they were, in fact, “mediatricians” and were licensed only to dispense Flash and WMV files. Finally, we found one practice that said they had a few doctors that would allow it, and we set up an appointment to meet them.

Now, in normal circumstances, you don’t generally go interview your doctor beforehand. You just show up with that weird rash you picked up in Costa Rica and jump right in to the quarantine process. So I was very curious as to what this process would be. We arrived shortly before our scheduled time – we had left ourselves a good amount of time, but ironically the practice is literally up the street from our house. It didn’t start well – before we even met with anybody we had to pay a $25 fee. This baffles me – I kept thinking that it was just to make sure you showed up, and kept waiting for them to say “hey, we were just screwing around – here’s your money back.” Never happened.

Anyway, after we arrived and paid, we were taken on a “tour” of the facilities. I was underwhelmed. It’s a doctor’s office. I get it. Exam rooms? Check. Lab room? Check. Bathroom? Check. Large waiting room with many clocks to remind you how long you’ve been sitting here? Check. They took us all around, and we even saw the break room where the “Grey’s Anatomy” workplace social stuff happens – George Clooney circa early 90’s was in the back eating a sandwich. Finally, we were ushered into one of the doctor’s offices and sat down with a nurse practitioner.

She went over the philosophy of the practice (“We fix sick kids for money”), talked about their operation (“we’re always running late”) and then talked about the doctor for a while (“she has a stethoscope”). She was able to answer a lot of our questions, most of which entailed the altered immune schedule. They were definitely willing to do it – they just warned us that the (evil) insurance companies nowadays are charging more for the extra visits necessary to spread out the shots. After a lot of conversation, she left and in came the doctor.

The doctor, in continuing our string of interesting characters, was a 50 year old, very fast talking energetic woman. She went over a lot of the same stuff as the nurse did, and then took our family medical history, which didn’t take too long (good genes). She kept going off on tangents, and then, by sheer happenstance, somehow mentioned that her kid went to a nearby high school and played lacrosse. Turns out that Kim had coached in the same district a few years ago and knew her daughter and all her friends.

Thus commenced a half an hour conversation about all things lacrosse. They chatted with reckless abandon, while I performed amazing feats of watch twirling. It’s a small world, it appears, and once my wife and the pediatrician made their connection, I knew that our long search for a doctor was at long last over.

Well, I mean it wasn’t a long process for me. I just kind of showed up at the end of the process, nodded my head disinterestedly, and reaped the benefits of someone else’s hard work.

Just like usual.

Before our tour, there was still a few subjects left to cover. Last class, we spent most of the time talking about the actual birth, and the medical interventions we could possibly encounter during that process. This day, the topic du jour was what happens immediately after birth, beyond the “unclenching”, euphoric relief, cigar smoking, and football spiking and customary victory dance.

The protocol these days, following the expungement, is to take the baby, still soaked in the amniotic sauce (with a hint of lime), and place it right on the mother’s bare chest. Apparently, the newly birthed child can, in some cases, immediately breastfeed, which seems silly because if I entered the world after sitting in a pool for nine months, I’d probably head for the bathroom. Or at least take a shower to get this goo off of me.

As the baby sits on Mom’s chest, the uterus contracts a few more times and out comes the polenta, which, if prepared correctly, goes great with sausage and cabbage. What’s that? Oh. Placenta. This oozing sac of blood vessels served as the filter between Mom and baby, and is apparently quite fascinating to look at. Our instructor encouraged the husbands to inquire about inspecting the placenta, as it is “pretty cool.” Instead, I’m pretty sure it’s “pretty gross.” She also mentioned that the placenta, being once a part of my wife’s uterus, was therefore our property and that we could take it home if we wanted to, ostensibly to plant a new tree with, or put in a shadow box and hang over the mantle. I quickly raised my eyebrows and turned at the idea, but Kim was already shaking her head no.

Within the first hour of birth, the state mandates that two things occur. The first is that the wriggling bundle of joy get jabbed with a needle that contains Vitamin K, which is given to help prevent clots from forming. Apparently having no teeth or the impulse to chew prevents them from taking Flintstones Newborn Vitamins, thus the syringe. The second thing that this new member of humanity gets is an unceremonious gob of ointment pushed into its eyes. Welcome to the planet – plop – good luck seeing it – this’ll teach you to trust adults.

Parents also have the option (recommended of course) to have their hour old child given the Hepatitis B vaccine shortly after birth. Hepatitis B is generally contracted one of two ways, either through sexual intercourse, or sharing intravenous needles, both of which must be rampant occurences in the hospital’s newborn nursery. Why else would you vaccinate a baby that just entered the world, encountered bright lights, loud noises, smiling giants, been pricked with vitamins and bleary eyed with ointment? Makes sense to me.

We were also told that some babies come out jaundiced, which means that they appear to have rolled around extensively in the dandelion patch. This is not a serious issue, and is solved by them sleeping under bili lights, which I have since learned share no relation with billy clubs.

After a lengthly discussion of what to expect in the hospital, we talked about the first few weeks at home. It turns out that during these first few weeks, Mom is a seeping, bloody mess. Seriously. Rubber sheet messy. Bloody adult diapers messy. Not only that, she can’t do a heckuva lot. No stairs. No driving. No cleaning. No badminton. Basically all she can do is sleep, eat, feed the baby, and bleed. This is the father’s “time to shine,” pitching in to clean the house, prepare meals, unclog the toilet, learn trigonometry, etc. I, of course, will do none of these things. That’s what visiting relatives are for.

To wrap up our final lecture, the instructors passed around a bag full of various items. Each couple took two items from the bag, and then we went around the room explaining what the items represented in terms of initial baby care. For example, a water bottle represented that mom needs to remain hydrated. A collection of balls of various sizes represented the growing size of baby’s stomach. A child’s diaper represented the unbelievable amount and variety of poop our child will generate. A set of keys and a passport represented “Dad’s last resort.” Our item was a pair of baby shoes, that had a delightful poem about the joys of parenting, and served as the end of our formal lectures.

After a short food break, it was time for the main event. We were led out of the building and across the street to Crouse Hospital, where the “magic” will happen. We came in via the main entrance, and took the elevator up to the labor and delivery floor. In a non emergency situation, we would proceed to admitting first, and then take the elevator up to the delivery center. Since we live close to the hospital however, our plan is to wait until the last possible minute, so we most likely won’t make it to admitting – delivering the baby in the elevator on the way up will probably preclude it.

Our first stop on the labor and delivery floor was one of the birthing suites.  The room looks benign enough – a bathroom, hospital bed, sink and tv.  A nice landscape painting adorned the wall, and a rustic clock ticked serenely on the wall.  It was sterile, but idyllic, a place of serenity and comfort.

But then our instructors began demonstrating the extended features of this ‘chamber.’  First off, the bed is actually ‘Pregatron,’ an alien transforming robot exiled on our planet, and with the press of a few buttons can actually tilt upright, grasp your wife with its mechanical claws, and literally shake the baby out of her. Everything else in the room has a similar secret purpose.  The landscape painting slides away to reveal a neonatal oxygen system.  The cabinets over the bed conceal emergency medical instruments.  The clock, when looked out properly, tells the nurse when to go on break.  The instructors also brought out a few of the birth assistance ‘devices’ – the birthing ball, the birthing stool, and th squat bar.  Who knew labor involved this much calisthenics.  I have a feeling Kim’s lats will be stellar when we’re through with this process.

After the birthing suite, we took a short around the floor to see a few other sites – the nutrition room, stocked with snacks for the laboring mothers, the blanket warmer, and the nurses station.  We turned the corner to head for the stairway and were detained for a moment as the instructors chatted with the nurses.

It was at this point that we noticed ‘them.’  A husband pushing his clearly in labor wife on a wheelchair. She was in a lot of pain, moaning and bobbing her head side to side.  Her husband looked ready to bolt.

I looked around at the other folks in the class.  All of the women had this indescribable, deer-in-the-headlights look of fear, and each was absently rubbing their stomachs as they stole furtive glances at this pair, their future.  The husbands were a mixed bag, some with a sympathetic look on their faces, nodding in encouragement to this imminent father, while others were stroking their wives hair, trying to help them hold onto their fragile psyche in the face of times to come.  And of course there was me, noting all of it for this blog entry.

We quickly were ushered into the staircase and down to the postpartum floor.  We were taken past the nursery, where a newborn was being ‘handled’ by a nurse.  The wives faces brightened at this sight – the goal of all this misery.  It was the husbands turn to wear the face of fear at this, the end of their Wii playing days.

We moved forward into a hospital room to see where we can expect to convalesce.  Unlike the “birthing lair” we saw before, this room is pretty much a plain old hospital room, with nothing special to note.  If we are lucky, we’ll have a room to ourselves.  If not, we’ll have to share with another couple and their screaming baby.  We were shuffled out of the room quickly – turns out it was earmarked for someone having a c-section upstairs.  I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that 20 strangers traipsed through her room minutes before she came back from serious abdominal surgery.

And that was it.  We took the elevator down to the basement, followed a maze and emerged in a parking garage.  After a quick goodbye we headed to the car, diploma in hand and confident in the knowledge that we were now adequately prepared for all that lay ahead of us.

Yeah, right.

Before delving into the various options of ‘pain management’, they had us play a little game. We were split into two groups, husbands on one side, wives on the other. The task was to list one ‘comfort’ for each letter of the alphabet. I was chosen as the husband team’s scribe, undoubtedly due to my fine penmanship and rugged good looks, and the fact that I volunteered. Pen in hand, my team prepared for ‘alphabattle.’

We had an interesting mix of guys. There was me, of course, and you already can guess my contributions. L is for liquor, for example. (Dad’s comfort is important too). Then we had studious guy, who knew all the ‘right’ answers (E is for efflourage, P is for peritoneal massage). Johnny Addict sat to my left (S is for shrooms, X is for Xanax). And of course there was sensitive guy, our ace in the hole. This guy knew a synonym for ‘awww’ in every letter (C is for caress, N is for nurture, E is for encouragement, V is for vomit). Within a few minutes, our page was filled, and the instructors began going through, letter by letter, comparing our answers to our wives answers.

As they revealed their answers, it became clear that a) they were not as talented at this game as the men and b) they were clearly expecting labor to be intensely painful. Here are a few of their responses:

A is for Analgesic
E is for Epidural
L is for local anesthia
W is for ‘We’re wusses’

The instructors, of course, agreed wholeheartedly with these answers, largely I assume because disageeing with third trimester pregnant women is never a good plan. But they practically FAWNED over our answers. Plus we had an answer for every letter (X is for xylophone, Z is for zither – music is a comfort) while the women came up short. So the husbands totally won. A small victory in a war all husbands ultimately lose, but a cause for celebration nevertheless.

After the game we returned to more regular lecture environment, as the instructor ran down the various options and interventions that may occur. At the base level, they offer the laboring mother drugs that simply cut the pain a bit. These get increasingly more effective up the ‘hallucination’ scale, starting at ‘I’m floating in the clouds’ all the way to ‘I’m back in Nam.’ After the drugs, the next option is the epidural, which is so well known and effective several of the women in the class asked if they could have it ‘right now.’

To demonstrate what our instructor termed ‘the package deal’ of epidurals, she asked for husband volunteers. Of course I jumped at the opportunity (after I was randomly piked and forced to, of course).  I was brought to the front of the room, given a gown and shower cap, and then administered an epidural. It was an odd sensation having a needle pushed into my spine – in fact, it didn’t hurt at all. I’d imagine having it ‘actually’ administered might be a tad more uncomfortable, but who knows.

After my ‘epidural’ I was laid down in a hospital bed, and then the rest of the package came. An IV to keep me hydrated. Pitocin to move things along. A Foley catheter to drain the bladder I can no longer feel. A fetal monitor. That hook thing to puncture my amniotic sac. A martini to take the edge off.  A billy club to subdue my husband.

Finally it was time to push. Two more husbands ‘volunteered’ to hold my legs back as I ‘gave birth.’

Honestly, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Labor, other than being monstrously humiliating, doesn’t hurt at all. If nothing else, the exercise reiterated to my wife the reasons she didn’t favor an epidural, and reinforced the reason she married me – my extremely large capacity for humiliation and ability to sustain large amounts of dignity loss.  That and my aforementioned rugged good looks.  And penmanship.

After a short snack (which this week we provided – cheese, and lots of it) we again convened for some labor exercises. The main focus today was ‘the urge to push,’ which of course we weren’t actually supposed to do, because Lost was on tonight and nobody wanted to miss it due to ‘premature labor.’ In the midst of explaining the process, our instructor casually informed us that she ‘loves’ pushing out babies, which of course was met with stunned silence and furtive glances around the room.  One poor woman passed out at the thought.

In any case, the process of pushing isn’t all that complicated, as it seems your uterus does all the work. It attempts, rather violently, to expel its writhing contents through a hole that’s slightly too small. I’m interested to see how this plays out, imagining this in my head as the instructor describes it. All the women in the room have this pained expression on their face at this point, and are exaperatedly rubbing their bellies.

Ah. This is going to be fun, I can see that now.

For one of us at least.

The focus of this particular class was a thorough discussion of something called “the birth plan.” The theory is that, as with any major task in life, labor should be thoroughly designed and thought out, with steps put into Microsoft Project, Gantt charts created, deliverables mapped out, and post launch maintenance and support plans in place. The birth plan should also apparently be filed with all the relevant government agencies, permits acquired, and background checks performed. It’s very intensive.

Now Kim and I aren’t really the planning types. Well. I am not really the planning type. I’m the kind of guy that, when asked to build a dog house, would go get a pile of wood and “make it work”. This is in stark contrast to the rest of my family. My father and grandfather, for example, designed and built a shed in our backyard that architects believe will stand well into the next ice age. They did not “make it work.”

So in order to get a head start on the birthing plan, we found ourselves facing 40 yellow (light canary, I would guess) cards on a table in front of us. Each card represented decisions or features of the labor process, with differing ideas on either side. Epidural or no epidural for example. Birthing ball or no birthing ball. Father in room during birth, father in car driving away from hospital as fast as possible. Things like that. The “game” occurred in several stages. The first stage was going through each card and deciding which of the two options we preferred.

In most cases, of course, that was whatever she preferred. Which is entirely fine with me. It surprises me when husbands heavily weigh in on questions of medicating their pregnant wife during labor. Here’s my take: labor seems to be a god awful painful thing to do, something men will probably never experience. While seeing my wife in pain (however much she deserves it for forcing this baby upon us) of course upsets me, if she feels the need to grin and bear (down) without the use of drugs, who am I to insist otherwise? Granted, if I was in the same situation I would be frolicking about in Lalaland, having lengthy discussions with the fairies that lived in the walls and drooling uncontrollably, but it’s her body and what she wishes to endure is ok by me.

After we had made our choices, the next stage was to pick the 6 most important of the 40 to us. Being the “granola” folk that we apparently are, we chose things like “no epidural” and “no episiotomy” and “liquor in the delivery room.” Going around the room, it was clear that these were not popular choices – based on the poll of the rest of the room, this class was much less labor class and much more Narcotics Anonymous.

Now we were presented with the following situation: the doctor comes in and declares that there are “issues” and we need to pick 6 things from our list that we have to give up. This was relatively easy as we all dumped the “fluff” decisions – birthing ball, shower/tub, inlaws. Then we were asked to pick 6 more. It started getting tougher. Then six more. Suddenly it becomes very difficult to figure out what to give up and what not to. It turned out to be a very eye-opening process, and did a good job of illustrating the purpose of a birth plan. And how quickly it can turn to @#$@.

After the game, we were given a quick run down on some of the medical interventions that can occur as part of the labor process. Things like Pitocin, which is apparently crystal meth for uteruses. (Uteri?) Or the medical device that is used to break the amniotic sac, or the ‘bag of waters.’ (Really? Medical science giving something a name that accurately describes what it is? Bizarre.) This device has some high-fallutin’ name – I call it a knitting hook. We finished our intervention discussion with the requisite video – gross as always.

After a short break, we reconvened in the gymnasium for lunges, squat thrusts and medicine ball practice. This was all part of something called the ‘labor stations’ which was designed to introduce us to a variety of positions that can be used during labor to help manage pain and/or provide for hilarious photography. The ‘birthing ball’ was a popular feature in these stations, as a comfy way for the mom to be to attempt some of the various positions, and to provide endless hours for dad to go ‘bowling for cats’ to pass the time. Other stations features a variety of devices to be used on the wife’s back – funky shaped massage devices, socks filled with tennis balls, and the rolling pin. These devices can also be used to ’subdue’ hysterical husbands in a pinch.

Another informative class, rife with eccentricities that provide fodder for the blog. Just a few classes left – and with no syllabus who knows what next week may bring? More cause for hilarity, I hope…