Five Weeks to Go

This week we had our second (of four) Lamaze classes at the hospital where we expect our little girl will be born sometime in the next five weeks.

I was proud of myself. This was the class where we had to watch "the video" and I think I handled it amazingly well, thank you very much. It will be interesting to see what actually happens, but I'm thinking that this will be a good experience all the way around. At least I hope it will be. You can't prepare for every possible situation, and I frankly, there are some I'd rather not prepare for because they are too scary, but in general, I'm an optimist, so I expect that our case will be like most and everything will be okay.

Anyway, the class was good. We talked a lot about the procedure of birth and the stages and stuff. There was a lot of it that was new information for me, and I'm glad to have more of an understanding of what to expect.

I haven't said anything here yet, but a recent comment made me decide to tell you that we've decided to use a non-traditional birthing method. We are preparing to do a hypnotic birthing, following the "Hypnobabies" course. I'm really excited about it, and think ti will be a very powerful, positive experience. I have no expectation that we will fail, but it is nice to know that if something unexpected *does* occur, we are in the hospital and can have necessary intervention.

We talked to the Lamaze instructor after the class on Monday and asked her about how supportive the hospital staff will be with the decision to use hypnobirthing techniques. She was very positive about it and said the hospital would be very supportive. Even better, she knew that our doctor in particular is very supportive of women who choose alternative birthing options. That was encouraging, because we haven't talked to him about it yet. In fact, he asked on the very first appointment if we were planning on an epidural or a natural birth, and we said we didn't know. He has never brought it up again. Neither have we. (We will at our next appointment on Wednesday.) So it is nice to know that he will be on board with us. What we need to be successful is people supporting the decision, rather than a bunch of critics saying how hard it is going to be. So I'm glad he'll be on our team.

It was also nice to have the Lamaze instructor (who is also a head nurse [I forget the correct term] in the labor and delivery department) tell us that if we requested a birthing nurse who is familiar with hypnobirthing that we could get a nurse who will be supportive of us.

In the end, we started the course a little late, but BW (beautiful wife) is working on the courses at an advanced pace, and all seems to be going well. I also got a CD with scripts for the birthing partner that I get to use.

I hope you aren't bored by this whole explanation. I'm just excited about the decision and am really excited about welcoming a little baby girl into the family sometime in the next month or so. Yay!!

Now I just need to practice relaxing -- which is hard when you are as excited as I am .