Child Birthing Class: Labor

At this class we talked about the phases and stages of labor and watched some videos.

I think the videos helped husband understand a little more that there will be a point when Mrs.G goes away and this primal being will emerge.

He even said during one of the videos that he is going to feel so helpless because he can't do "anything." He knows that he can try his best to help me through it but that I still have to go through it.

It was a real wake up call for him. I sat there and thought to myself "why the hell am I voluntarily doing this" as a woman roared out her baby.

Then it happened.

Husband is extremely squeamish when it comes to blood. He can watch the most slice'em and dice'em slasher flick but the one time I stopped on a surgery show I thought he was going to either faint and then throw up or vice versa.

Tanya talked about the placenta and how a full lotus birth is starting to come up in birthing circles again. A full lotus birth is  where after the baby is born and the placenta is out  you keep baby and placenta attached until it naturally falls off. Husband just looked at me wide eyed and I reassured him that I would not be partaking in this birthing option.

Then Tanya said " I have a placenta from a birth this morning if you want to see it."

I was all for it, I mean come on, it is an organ, and you don't get to see that everyday. I get up and notice that everyone is going in to the little room and I look back and husband is standing up. As he joined me I asked him what it felt like, as an almost 30 year old man, to succumb to peer pressure.

We went in and Y'all a placenta is gross but it is soooooo cool.

It looks like a red balloon, mostly because it still had the umbilical cord still attached to it. Honestly, it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be too. When you think about the fact that a uterus grows so exponentially (from the size of your fist the first few weeks to the size of a soccer ball in your second tri) that this thing would be huge.

Tanya explained what everything was and I couldn't help that husband has never been so focused on what someone was saying before, then I realized as she gestured with her hands, which had gloves covered in blood, he was just trying to not look at anything.

Then we watched a labor in reverse. The baby crowing, the pushing stage, active labor and then early labor. It was cool to see it in reverse because you have more of a sense as how they got to this place and how they got through it.

In some weird twisty way I am curious how I am going to handle the pain. You hear stories of women who roar, cry and spit or the women who just all of sudden aren't mentally there anymore they are so focused and they just kind of breathe the baby out.

I would like to think I am that cool, to be all focusy and calm, but I have a feeling I am going to be like that latter...