No time to lose!
Apr. 16th, 2007 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tropeI suppose this is more of a "prep day" report, but I'm very excited that I'm making forward progress on the actual baby planning, not just continuing to grow bigger and saying "LA-LA-LA!" with my fingers in my ears when people say, "It won't be long now, will it?"
We have the nursery not-entirely-empty of boxes, and my mother brought the antique crib last week on her visit. I'm meeting with two doulas this week. And we went to our first childbirth education class last night! It seems like it will be a pretty good fit on all the need-to-know stuff, and the tone of it is neither too medical or too overtly critical of the interventions that some women choose. We did talk a lot about the history of childbirth, and the class promised next week to talk about comfort measures during pregnancy such as alleviating heartburn (why next week? Why aren't we talking about this NOW??), relaxation exercises, and sex during pregnancy (YAY). Also, which was less fun, we got our first disposable diaper sample and a whole raft of advertisements for consumer junk that the magazine claims we absolutely will need now that we will be parents. One advert begins, "Two months to go. No time to lose." So buy this breast pump RIGHT NOW! Right.
We also watched our first birth video, which was pretty G-rated. C did great and didn't seem distressed at all by it. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. I managed to make it back to the privacy of our car and home, but then spent a couple hours freaking out because there's a BABY in there and it's going to come OUT of MY BODY and what if he's BLUE like the baby in the video and he might be SICK or might get STUCK or blah blah blah. Despite C's reassurances ("No, did you see how that baby was fine? She cried right away, and we saw her when she was older and she smiled?") I was all panicked and convinced that labor would hurt like hell and then I would give birth to a smurf.
I've been really good at giving the finger to the fear-mongering cultural messages that tell me pregnancy is some kind of illness. But this is my first baby, and seeing an example of childbirth really tapped in to a more basic concern that this is an important, powerful process of nature. I tend to skate carefully around power sources, and labor and childbirth suddenly make me feel like I am planning on sticking my finger in a light socket. I suppose I'm taking classes precisely to get more comfortable with this idea, eh?
Gotta love those hormones...
We have the nursery not-entirely-empty of boxes, and my mother brought the antique crib last week on her visit. I'm meeting with two doulas this week. And we went to our first childbirth education class last night! It seems like it will be a pretty good fit on all the need-to-know stuff, and the tone of it is neither too medical or too overtly critical of the interventions that some women choose. We did talk a lot about the history of childbirth, and the class promised next week to talk about comfort measures during pregnancy such as alleviating heartburn (why next week? Why aren't we talking about this NOW??), relaxation exercises, and sex during pregnancy (YAY). Also, which was less fun, we got our first disposable diaper sample and a whole raft of advertisements for consumer junk that the magazine claims we absolutely will need now that we will be parents. One advert begins, "Two months to go. No time to lose." So buy this breast pump RIGHT NOW! Right.
We also watched our first birth video, which was pretty G-rated. C did great and didn't seem distressed at all by it. I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. I managed to make it back to the privacy of our car and home, but then spent a couple hours freaking out because there's a BABY in there and it's going to come OUT of MY BODY and what if he's BLUE like the baby in the video and he might be SICK or might get STUCK or blah blah blah. Despite C's reassurances ("No, did you see how that baby was fine? She cried right away, and we saw her when she was older and she smiled?") I was all panicked and convinced that labor would hurt like hell and then I would give birth to a smurf.
I've been really good at giving the finger to the fear-mongering cultural messages that tell me pregnancy is some kind of illness. But this is my first baby, and seeing an example of childbirth really tapped in to a more basic concern that this is an important, powerful process of nature. I tend to skate carefully around power sources, and labor and childbirth suddenly make me feel like I am planning on sticking my finger in a light socket. I suppose I'm taking classes precisely to get more comfortable with this idea, eh?
Gotta love those hormones...
