27w5d: Education

[ Note to self: never, ever, ever decide to have lunch at the McD's playland on a Saturday. Just don't do it. Resist the temptation. ]

While cleaning up the nursery a while back I came across the Bradley birth book that I got with G. We took just a general 4 week childbirth education class with her and, while it wasn't a complete waste of time, it wasn't exactly anything to write home about. I bought the Bradley book thinking I would get some tips out of it without taking the 12 week class. I started re-reading it the other day. The first few chapters reminded me why I wasn't interested in the class in the first place. I find the tone of the book somewhat condescending. Not sure why; I just do. At any rate, this morning I started reading the chapter on the different stages of labor. Oh my gosh, if I had really read and ingested that stuff with G, my perspective of her labor and birth might have been quite different. I realize in retrospect that I went through all the stages exactly as the book describes them. Even though my labor was not in any way "textbook", I was textbook according to Dr. Bradley because I hit all the stages. If I had been familiar with the stages, I wouldn't have felt like such a failure when I reached the last stage and questioned whether I could really do a "natural" childbirth and asked for drugs. The book says that when you reach that stage where you question whether you can really do that, delivery is just around the corner. And it was - within half an hour G was born. What a thing to hold on to when you're in the thick of it!

Reading that today made me determined to really read it and take it all in for next time. I'm also going to make J read certain chapters. I'm not sure I can whole-heartedly recommend the book but I can say that it will give you a lot of insight into what's going to happen.