Birth Class

We went to our Yoga Way to Birth class this weekend. It was really good. There was enough sharing and talking about fears and feelings, but there was also good concrete stuff. It wasn't too full of woo-woo to be useful to us.

Neither Mike nor I found the actual yoga practice part to be all that useful. It was a lot of postures that I don't like when I'm not pregnant, and I don't find them to be any more pleasant now that I am. I'll stick with my prenatal yoga class. I think we do better poses for pregnancy and birth in there.

We talked about what happens to the baby during the birth process. The instructor (Tina) had a pelvis and a babydoll and modeled what the baby would be doing during the entire thing. It was very useful to see how the baby turned and moved because that's been hard for me to visualize.

We did a "sensation processing" activity where we held ice cubes in our hands (or on our wrists) and tried different things to cope with the sensation. Tina said we shouldn't think of it as pain processing because we didn't know whether or not the labor process would be painful. It could be, but it could also not be. I found that focusing on my breathing was very helpful. Focusing on the sensation and evaluating it was also useful. Focusing on both my breathing and the sensation also worked, but it was challenging to get it all together.

We talked a bunch about our assumptions about the birth process and what it might really be like (summary: we have no idea, so it's hard to really prepare). We also talked a lot about what we needed in order to feel safe and prepared. Those were some of the most useful conversations.

I really liked the other couples who were at the class. I'm hoping that we stay in contact and can get together before (and after) the birth. Of the four other couples who were there, three are due at the end of March. It'd be like a ready-made playgroup for the babies. We're also going through a lot of the same things during pregnancy and we're similar enough in beliefs to have all gone to a yoga birth class. The instructor said she would send out contact info this week. I'm going to see if anyone wants to get together again once I have people's contact info.

Overall, the class was a very positive experience and we learned a lot. It led to some good talking about the birth process between Mike and I. I'm glad we did it.