Child Birthing Classes: Part 1

So last week we attended our first child birthing class.  This is the first in a series of 6 that will conclude on May 4.  We decided to start them now because we will not have time to complete them before Evie comes, once we are back in Tehachapi, and any later than this, we will not have time to complete them in Ventura.  We went back and forth on whether or not we should even do them.  I am currently taking prenatal yoga and I am learning some great pain management techniques, as well as breathing practices, but we want to be as prepared as possible, so we decided to go for it.  We are taking them through the local community hospital in Ventura.

The class is two hours and our instructor, Pam, was pretty entertaining.  She made the topics interesting (though I think Keith was a little bored)  Half way through we had a break.  During this time the men were encouraged to try on the empathy belly to get an idea of what we women are going through.  Keith looked pretty good in it!

After the break we watched a video and then had to practice the breathing techniques...which I DO NOT LIKE.  I prefer my yoga breathing, but I tried to do it anyway with little success.  I could not figure out when I was suppose to be breathing in.  Then it didn't help that Keith was laughing.  Needless to say I started laughing and we were the only couple out of 10, who could not do the breathing exercises because we were laughing so hard.  I felt like "that" student in class who the teacher figures out the first day of school is going to cause problems.  But regardless of what everyone "thought" of us, we laughed the whole way home remembering the night.