Go to your happy place

MB and I started our six-week Prepared Childbirth class last week, and while I was somewhat disappointed that our class isn't going to involve a knitted blue-and-white striped uterus like Jonniker's did, I think it's going to be interesting. I really like our teacher, who endeared herself to me during the first class by calling the early-stage embryos in her birth atlas "critters." She doesn't seem to have a huge agenda of medicated birth vs. natural birth, either, which is a relief. A friend of mine was told at her first birth class, "This is all you need to know:  say 'I want my epidural!' and you'll be fine."

Some of the stuff we're asked to do for homework is going to be a little bit goofy, I think, but I appreciate the general spirit of the thing if that makes sense. At each class she gives us a few pages of homework from the booklet, we talk about some aspect of pregnancy / birth, and then she has us sit on the floor and learn a few simple exercises. This week we practiced relaxation and visualization, so that was a big win. Almost like mini-naptime! Before we practiced relaxing, she taught us about kegels.

She pointed out that Dr. Kegel wants us ladies to do kegels until the baby is born, and then to keep doing them for the rest of our lives. "Or," she added, "at least feel guilty about not doing them for the rest of your lives." HA. She told us that kegels are especially nice since we can do them anywhere. One woman she talked to, for instance, kegeled any time she was up changing a diaper. Someone else kegeled while washing dishes or folding laundry. "I've even heard of a woman who kegeled at red lights," she said, "but that one bothers me, to be honest." I expected her to say something about unsafe driving habits, but instead: "It bothers me because now when I'm at a red light, I'm looking at all the other drivers, wondering who is doing kegels." And now the rest of us will be, too.