Pain is for Suckers

This post is dedicated to Benanna who are expecting a Chaquita Benanna in October!

I didn't blog a lot about pregnancy. The first pregnancy was pre-StalkingDebo and the 2nd pregnancy was so weird with all the twins. I drafted a few posts but just couldn't finish anything.

For posterity, I'm going to post a few random stories from my pregnancies. Some things are just too weird or funny to be forgotten.

Twins have a greater chance of being born via C-section but if you spend 10 seconds on Google, you can find lots of ways to bring two babies into the world. Hospital, Birthing Center, Home Birth, Mountaintop labor, you can find it all. In my 1st pregnancy, Sasha was footling breach from about week 28. She was as spread out as much as possible taking up 2/3 of my belly while little Alex was tucked into a ball in the corner. It took MONTHS for him to extend his legs after he was born.

But by the time we needed to take a childbirth class, Nu and I weren't sure of my childbirth fate. I thought a C-section was likely but my Dr. didn't want to make any decisions until week 35. So we went though the motions and enrolled in a Labor Orientation class. We had a wonderful teacher who was so knowledgeable about how babies are born. They covered every part of labor--even C-sections--and provided info about newborn babies as well.

HOWEVER, we did not fit in very well with the rest of our classmates. Our first clue came within the first 10 minutes of class. Everyone went around the room and shared their goals for their childbirth. Goals? How about healthy babies? Isn't that the point of this whole drama? Apparently no. Some masochists actually think the goal of pregnancy is the childbirth experience. And their wives agree with them.

Some want to experience the PAIN, the SUFFERING, the INCONTINENCE and they don't want so much as an aspirin to get in their way. There were about 15 couples in our class and each went around the room sharing their goals:

natural
little intervention
simple
no meds!
breathing
granola
hippie
Preferably while singing "Kum Ba Ya"

When it was my turn, I wanted to say, "I don't want to feel anything. I
actually want an epidural right now." but I felt pressured and self-conscious of
my radical pain management ideas and muttered something like, "I want the least
traumatic experience possible."

At this point, I should say that this is America and everyone has a right to their own childbirth experience. Do I think women should be able to choose how they give birth? Absolutely. Do I understand chilbirth without meds? Not really.

So.

Nu and I continued to attend this class week after week learning important things about breathing and pushing and transition and placentas, etc. I think the class was most helpful for Nu. Not until you have your first pregnancy do you realize how little guys know about
how babies are made. At one point during the pregnancy, I briefly convinced him
that the baby's body parts were floating around independent of each other until
they popped onto the body like Mr. Potato Head.

But when we weren't learning about the birthing process, we were practicing breathing and talking about pain management. With a Frosty always in hand (love the Wendy's at the
hospital), I went through the motions just in case I had to give birth in a
stalled elevator or something. The best part was when we clipped clothespins to
our ears to simulate breathing through the pain. We just squealed "ouch! ouch!
ouch!" until stern looks from our classmates shamed us into taking them off.

We experiemented with a variety of birthing positions--the exercise
ball, pillows, leaning on a chair, etc. I determined that these exercises were
way too hard to do pregnant and usually ended sipping my frosty while leaning
against the back wall. Naoshi just kept txting on his phone while asking "guy"
questions:

Will the hospital TV have cable?

Do I (Nu) have to spend the night?

If you're getting an epidural, why do we have to learn about breathing?

Ew gross!!! Is that the baby's head!!???

Is it ok if I play soccer next Thursday?

If nothing else, Childbirth Class convinced me that "Traditional Methods" were not for me. As soon as allowed, I scheduled my appointment for a Friday in the OR and never looked back. Three years and two weeks later, we did it all again and it was even more fun the 2nd time.

December 2, 2005

December 12, 2008