Sickness and Disease

With our due date a little under 5 weeks away, Billy and I ventured over to the hospital for a little hospital cafeteria food....AND our birthing classes. :) They were jam-packed into 1 long weekend. We learned SO MUCH! I mean, we’ve had friends who’ve told us what to expect (like 4, 000 different stories too), but to hear and see the actual event taking place made it even that much more real. I’ve seen Baby Story a thousand times, but it’s almost always high-risk deliveries, and they’re usually edited to the max anyway.


The instructor said that people always seem to be confused when ladies have “hospital births” mixing them up with all the other patients who come with SICKNESS and DISEASE. She said “pregnancy is not a SICKNESS”, and “You don’t have a DISEASE”. It was a good reminder that we were born for this! God made the female body to carry this child through 40 weeks of miraculous formation, and we were made to birth these children as naturally as possible! It was empowering. I leaned over to my “support person” a.k.a husband, and said “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROARRRRRR!”


Lamaze has gotten away from their stereotypical “hee-hee-hooo’s” in breathing, and really made some efforts to teach women to find their very most natural and comfortable way of deeply or shallowly breathing in order to stay calm and relaxed. We got to practice those techniques and figure out what works best for us. It was fun. It reminded me of my vocal warm ups before a big singing competition or concert…if you can really use your diaphragm and breathe right, you relax and stretch the rest of your body, just like you would your vocal chords.


We also had some fun with pilates balls, handheld relaxation tools, and music. We learned several ways we can use a squatting bar, or our partner for support and counter-pressure. It was great and helpful and now I’m not nearly as anxious about what to expect. We have quite a few options to be really active during labor if we want to be. I’m really gonna’ TRY to stay as un-medicated as possible (please pray for me, lol). I’m not ruling it all out, and won’t feel like a failure if I end up asking for a little epidural action, but I am doing my best to go meds free…it’s better for the baby, and I know it’s a much better recovery for me too.


I think my biggest fear and anxiety before was the claustrophobic feeling I might experience with the medical staff being too darn invasive, or cords keeping me tied to my bed, or the potential use of drugs that may keep me from feeling much of my body…but now that this boy’s dropping a little, and I’m breathing better and more naturally again, and now that I have so much more information on what my options to relax and be focused on the right things are, the more I think I’ll be just fine.

All in all, I can do this! I AM WOMAN AND I WAS MADE FOR THIS!