A Changing Perspective

Up until this past week, the reality of how Daniel and my lives is about to change was incredibly unnerving. Thoughts about how our day-to-day lives would change, my increasing exhaustion and laziness, and the...discomfort of actually going through labor and delivery permeated my dreams and thoughts throughout the day. Tomorrow Daniel and I have our last class together at the hospital to prepare for the baby, and I have to say these classes have been key in changing my perspective on the upcoming birth of our child.



At first, some of the classes only freaked me out more as they showed videos and images involving labor and giving birth. My dreams at night quickly became quite uncomfortable and graphic. That all started to change this past weekend as Daniel and I went to some of our final classes.

In 24 hours, Daniel and I attended a class on breastfeeding, a class on labor support, and a tour of the maternity ward. I'll admit the tour of the maternity ward definitely put me on edge. I was suddenly able to picture with clarity where I would be and what I would be doing in the next month or so. While it was incredibly helpful, and now I feel better, the other two classes were much more comforting.

Breastfeeding is a huge mystery to me. For two reasons. 1) I have never done ANYTHING like that before...obviously. 2) It's not just a momentary thing. It goes on for a significant amount of time and is about to become part of my daily routine. This class did a fantastic job of taking away some of the mystery and making me feel like it's not going to be a terrifying, painful, or foreign experience.

Finally, our labor and support class is really what got me. They took us through different positions and techniques to minimize pain whether you are getting an epidural or not. Then, they let us actually practice at stations with our partners. Being able to go through these motions and feel like we were filling our repertoire with ideas of how to cope comforted me. Additionally, experiencing how intuitively Daniel and I could work together to ease aches and pains that are already present (believe me...) was phenomenal. It was definitely the first time that I left that hospital, hand-in-hand with my husband, thinking "we totally got this."

This altered mentality began infecting my dreams and my daily mood. I actually had a dream about labor and delivery that involved laughter and smiles (too optimistic?...who knows? Daniel's got a great sense of humor). Additionally, for the first time, I had a dream where I saw my baby's face. I've never generated an image of him/her before, and it was fascinating to feel that rush of excitement that has been so desperately sparse during the past several months. This new attitude trickled into my waking hours as I finally put together the rest of the baby's room and suddenly had this desperate need to clean and prep as much as physically possible because it's really starting to hit me that we're going to have a baby here!

I don't know if that's everyone's experience with their delivery preparatory classes, but I have been incredibly pleased with everything we've experienced so far. Hopefully, it only continues as the time comes closer to an end!