We spent two Saturdays with our childbirth educator and another lovely couple who are due right around the same time as we are. This took place at our birth center, which was great for continuing to grow comfortable with the space where we will have our big day in February!
The class we took was based roughly on the curriculum of Birthing from Within, a book by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. The class covers a variety of things about preparing mentally, emotionally and spiritually for childbirth. We also explored some aspects of postpartum adjustment (infant care, mommy care, expectations and breastfeeding). I think most classes are probably generally similar in a lot of areas of preparation. I don’t know that we found the absolute perfect fit class for us out there, but we definitely enjoyed the time taken out to focus in on preparing ourselves as much as we could for the birth experience. Much of it was just being guided to talk through and think through expectations about what the birth experience will be like, learning some tools for “pain-coping,” and most importantly just dialoging about the realities of pre, during and post labor and birth.
I appreciated Sandra who was our instructor, and having the intimacy of a class with just one other couple. It was nice to be able to get to know them some, and share our experiences; and especially to have time to share our thoughts and concerns and talk through them specifically. There was a good balance of taking time as a couple, too, to discuss more privately and personally.
This is one of those things that you can not prepare for entirely, but I did feel like this part of the journey was a helpful exploration process.
While there were some parts of the class that came from a perspective we don’t agree with (Darwinian just-so stories, mainly), overall it was helpful and enjoyable. We drew a labyrinth and talked through how this (like many life experiences) can be visualized in a labyrinth — predicting there will be stretches of clear straight-aways, coming up to walls that stop us, hitting dead ends, coming close to the center and being thrown back out to an outer edge…and finally coming around to the main destination. It was nice to engage the visual aspect of our brains and discuss where we forsaw these parallels coming in. And then also having an experienced mother share some of her own insights on some places to expect these bumps and progresses.
We also did an exercise or two where we drew something to visualize the positive outcome of an experience that we saw as a “worst case” scenario. For mine, my final result was an image of us with baby and remembering that the end result was what to stay focused on, no matter how we get there; to trust my creator and protector and the great Physician who will be with me. I also visually was reminded of the people we have hand picked to be there who will be there regardless of where we birth.
Scott had a honest picture of him standing by my side. He realized some how he might feel unable at many times through the laboring process to really “do” anything…and to just embrace his role of being present and there for me, as well as for our son.
The final thing I did was work with clay and express whatever…I created this piece. I could go into what it may mean, but as Sandra said, the clay just comes to life and speaks. I enjoyed this activity and engaging that part of my brain with this experience; it seems very important to such a large event in our life and especially in processing all the preparation, doubts, concerns, excitements for this life change!
So we’ve faced our tigers, we’ve discussed some expectations and will continue these discussions up to the birth-date and after. Like we learned in premarital counseling, and especially being on the educator side of premarital — the couple may be too optimistic to forsee the problems of the future, but the training is in having opened conversation, and given them an avenue to connect with you as an educator, and the idea to connect to community when they need help when bumps come along.
This class definitely helped us find more confidence in seeing the larger picture of what this experience might look like. But we know there will/may be surprises and bumps here and there. But we’ve started the dialog and we hope that this was a good start to conversation continuing through the process….and helpful to us not being too surprised when things do come up. We hopefully will take them in stride, trusting the care of the midwives we have chosen, or the care of a doctor and nurses if we for some reason are transferred to the hospital.
The kind of coolest part of all was in the last couple of hours of the class, a baby was born at the birth center while we were there! The 3rd time mom came in while in labor, but said we were fine to stay there. We didn’t hear anything until we heard the baby crying out his first cry! It was really exciting and encouraging — reminding us of the “end goal” and it just really brought it to life…literally. WOW.
Unlike my experience of touring Winnie Palmer, we were thrilled by our experience with the midwives at the Birth Place. Some major differences were that all the things that we would read in checklists in the spectrum of books — the midwife answered before we even had to ask. The assumptions are your natural preferences, and any intervention would only be done when necessary. The midwife, Robyn, who gave us the tour was very open to say that even that past weekend, a rare occurrence of a mother who was not progressing through transition, and had grown exhausted, was taken to the hospital safely and she ended up having her birth there. The birth center midwives are very open about their procedures and practices; as certified midwives, they are under the same requirements as the hospital when it comes to medical discipline and accountability. While they are not doctors, they are accountable to doctors, and to keep their licensure, which is something they’d want to do, they will not make dumb choices that will put the mother or child at risk. Like the doctors and hospitals, their goal is healthy mom, healthy baby.
