We had childbirth classes this weekend. For me, it was one of those events that seems fantastically important and interesting when you’re signing up for it, and then you force yourself to go to it when the time comes to show up. The usual excuses, nothing interesting: getting up early on both weekend mornings to sit in a room with other expecting couples just isn’t that appealing.
There were four-and-a-half couples: one young woman, another young couple, two older and us in the middle. The two instructors (both of whom were young nurses on the Labor & Delivery floor) divided the class into men and women right away and told us to think of a word for each letter of the alphabet to describe childbirth. The women had gotten to ‘M,’ when the young woman’s other half rolled in, Red Bull in one hand, phone in the other and took a seat off to the side of the other men. He texted furiously for ten minutes, obsessively shaking his Chuck Taylor-clad feet and adjusting his Volcom cap. The men finished their A-Z listing of childbirth words and the instructor said they’d give the women a few more minutes to finish. Volcom Guy snorted and said “women are always late.” The instructor evenly replied “I noticed you were on time today.”
We ran through the exercise and moved on to the next one, still in same-sex groups. The prompt this time was “what is your dream/fantasy for your childbirth experience?” Volcom Guy’s Wife immediately said “I just want him to have the television off. And maybe not text so much.” The four other women immediately began to soothe her: oh, he won’t. He’ll realize how important it is and do what you want. “But”, VGW protested, “look at him now! He doesn’t even take this seriously.” He was texting, again, hunched over a phone, intensely focused, his body language telling the actual people he’s in the physical room with that the phantom person at the other end of the text is way more important than them.
I later learned that Volcom Guy had smarmed to the other men that his dream for the birth of his child was that his wife not scream in between the commercial breaks. Charming.
We learned that one of the older couples was in the insurance industry in the Berkshires. When we reached topic of the signs of labor, someone brought up the bag of waters breaking. The father-in-waiting asked “how does it smell, the amniotic fluid?” yeah, we all retched a bit too. The other older couple had quiet confidence and well-developed smile lines. There was a young snowboarding couple who laughed and nodded their way through class. And us. And the Volcoms.
The charts finally got broken out and we found out about the sorts of pain levels and contraction cycles to expect in early labor, active labor, transition and pushing. Volcom Guy raised his hand. He was disturbed by the pain and contraction chart for what is known as transition. Not so much because his wife would experience this painful section of labor, but because he himself had a hard time with pain. He asked if marriage stability correlated to the length of time in transition (it does not). Finally the instructor turned the chart around. “Thank you. I feel better now. I didn’t like looking at that,” was all Volcom Guy said before he resumed texting.
The guided meditation that ended the first day was too much wussiness for Volcom Guy: he just up and left the room so he didn’t have to go to his happy place.
The next day Volcom Guy explained in detail how the hormone oxytocin works through a positive feedback loop in the body. After the class peeled its collective jaw up from the floor he said, by way of clarification, “I was in dental school.” He didn’t say he was a dentist, just that he went to dental school. Once we had this tidbit of background information I began to sing the dentist’s song from “Little Shop of Horrors” under my breath.
You'll be a dentist
You have a talent for causin' things pain
Son, be a dentist
People will pay you to be inhumane
The polished-looking insurance-business couple didn’t come with their questions the next day and apparently Volcom Guy had humored his wife long enough as they left halfway through the class. It was really a shame too because that was when we got down to the nitty-gritty: the available pain medications and our attitudes towards them; trying out physical comfort measures for labor like massage, birthing balls and rebozo and deciding what we like best. It was easily the most informative part of class. I fell in love with rebozo sifting. I tried to find some information on it, but there oddly isn’t that much on the internet, though there is this. (I also tried finding Volcom Guy’s possible dental practice but couldn’t find anything on that at all.)
It was definitely worth getting up early on the weekend to sit in a room with other expecting couples, if not for the information on how labor unfolds and things you can do to mitigate the pain, then at least to watch men process the female side of the birds and the bees. Or, if your man can already keep a straight face when you say words like cervix, vagina, uterus and perineum, you’ll still gain a lot by listening to the questions other people have about labor and delivery. It’s rite of baby passage, I suppose.
There were four-and-a-half couples: one young woman, another young couple, two older and us in the middle. The two instructors (both of whom were young nurses on the Labor & Delivery floor) divided the class into men and women right away and told us to think of a word for each letter of the alphabet to describe childbirth. The women had gotten to ‘M,’ when the young woman’s other half rolled in, Red Bull in one hand, phone in the other and took a seat off to the side of the other men. He texted furiously for ten minutes, obsessively shaking his Chuck Taylor-clad feet and adjusting his Volcom cap. The men finished their A-Z listing of childbirth words and the instructor said they’d give the women a few more minutes to finish. Volcom Guy snorted and said “women are always late.” The instructor evenly replied “I noticed you were on time today.”
We ran through the exercise and moved on to the next one, still in same-sex groups. The prompt this time was “what is your dream/fantasy for your childbirth experience?” Volcom Guy’s Wife immediately said “I just want him to have the television off. And maybe not text so much.” The four other women immediately began to soothe her: oh, he won’t. He’ll realize how important it is and do what you want. “But”, VGW protested, “look at him now! He doesn’t even take this seriously.” He was texting, again, hunched over a phone, intensely focused, his body language telling the actual people he’s in the physical room with that the phantom person at the other end of the text is way more important than them.
I later learned that Volcom Guy had smarmed to the other men that his dream for the birth of his child was that his wife not scream in between the commercial breaks. Charming.
We learned that one of the older couples was in the insurance industry in the Berkshires. When we reached topic of the signs of labor, someone brought up the bag of waters breaking. The father-in-waiting asked “how does it smell, the amniotic fluid?” yeah, we all retched a bit too. The other older couple had quiet confidence and well-developed smile lines. There was a young snowboarding couple who laughed and nodded their way through class. And us. And the Volcoms.
The charts finally got broken out and we found out about the sorts of pain levels and contraction cycles to expect in early labor, active labor, transition and pushing. Volcom Guy raised his hand. He was disturbed by the pain and contraction chart for what is known as transition. Not so much because his wife would experience this painful section of labor, but because he himself had a hard time with pain. He asked if marriage stability correlated to the length of time in transition (it does not). Finally the instructor turned the chart around. “Thank you. I feel better now. I didn’t like looking at that,” was all Volcom Guy said before he resumed texting.
The guided meditation that ended the first day was too much wussiness for Volcom Guy: he just up and left the room so he didn’t have to go to his happy place.
The next day Volcom Guy explained in detail how the hormone oxytocin works through a positive feedback loop in the body. After the class peeled its collective jaw up from the floor he said, by way of clarification, “I was in dental school.” He didn’t say he was a dentist, just that he went to dental school. Once we had this tidbit of background information I began to sing the dentist’s song from “Little Shop of Horrors” under my breath.
You'll be a dentist
You have a talent for causin' things pain
Son, be a dentist
People will pay you to be inhumane
The polished-looking insurance-business couple didn’t come with their questions the next day and apparently Volcom Guy had humored his wife long enough as they left halfway through the class. It was really a shame too because that was when we got down to the nitty-gritty: the available pain medications and our attitudes towards them; trying out physical comfort measures for labor like massage, birthing balls and rebozo and deciding what we like best. It was easily the most informative part of class. I fell in love with rebozo sifting. I tried to find some information on it, but there oddly isn’t that much on the internet, though there is this. (I also tried finding Volcom Guy’s possible dental practice but couldn’t find anything on that at all.)
It was definitely worth getting up early on the weekend to sit in a room with other expecting couples, if not for the information on how labor unfolds and things you can do to mitigate the pain, then at least to watch men process the female side of the birds and the bees. Or, if your man can already keep a straight face when you say words like cervix, vagina, uterus and perineum, you’ll still gain a lot by listening to the questions other people have about labor and delivery. It’s rite of baby passage, I suppose.
1 comment:
I was thinking about you tonight. Since I seem to have some psychic connection (knew when you got married, knew when you were pregant ... ), I am not surprised to see this new post. I think you're going to have the kid soon. Any chance of your mom getting up there earlier than planned? love, r-ie
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