It's been FOREVER since I wrote in my blogger -- too busy being pregnant I guess. However, thanks to pregnancy, I have a new vent to share .... the adventures of childbirth education classes!
Since our hospital is in Center City Philadelphia, I (quite naively I'll admit) thought our class would be a Sesame Street-esque blend of diverse couples. My non-PC husband, however, reminded me that only overly anxious white people with $120 to blow on useless childbirth ed classes actually follow doctor's orders and attend childbirth ed classes. No, I wouldn't be seeing the 14-year-old Moms that I sit with in the waiting room at my OB at this Saturday's How to Have a Baby 101.
The class was 18 couples, most of whom were crunchity, crunch, crunch granola/wheat germ eating Whole Foods shopping yoga-heads, who insisted that they were going natural and squatting in the Downward Dog position with a ballet bar or chair rail to give birth. Something told me I shouldn't mention to them that I actually ate a hot dog while pregnant (a big NO NO) -- and washed it down with two sips of my husband's Miller Lite at the Phillies game.
I, on the otherhand, made no apologies for my theory that epidurals are manna from heaven and meant to be taken -- and taken as early as humanly possible. I was being judged all day for my admission at the beginning of the class that I was considering an epidural. I just kept muttering to myself -- "One of you bitches needs to call me when you're chanting, looking out of your third eye and sporting a coochie that's 9 centimeters dilated. Let me know how that's going without pain medication so I can adjust my plans -- but something tells me you'll be the one adjusting your plans -- not to mention your yoga position."
There was the couple with the twins, who would be "just devastated" if she couldn't deliver them vaginally. (Something told me that they've never had a personal tragedy in their lives). Then there was "I'm the only pregnant woman here," whom my husband and I sat directly behind. First of all, she brought PILLOWS. There were no instructions given of the sort. For the duration of the class, she moaned, adjusted her pillows, grabbed her husband's hand as if she was about to fall from the Golden Gate to her peril and drank from a water jug the size of my ass using two full gripped hands, gulping and gasping as if reinacting a scene from Ishtar. (As a sidenote, she also ate every bear claw pastry intended for the remainder of the group). I was stunned at my husband's silence toward this chick's behavior, but he finally broke down on the way to lunch and said, "What's with High Maintenance Honey in front of us? Doesn't she see that she's surrounded by pregnant women who can tell she's a fraud?"
High Maintenance Honey was just the highlight in the cast of characters.....
There was Mid-Life Mommy, who wanted to know if she could have her 6-year-old in the birthing room to "learn about the miracle of life…….." We also couldn't figure out why someone with a kid would endure another class!???!!???!!??!!
And then there was Don't Touch Daddy, who kept asking the nurses whether or not he'd be asked permission before a medical instrument or IV touched his wife's skin……….
And of course, I'm Important Damn It, who insisted that his cell phone be on (and ringing, not vibrating) throughout the entire 7-hour day. Oh so appropriately, his wifey sported an 'adorable' (gag) "Due in November" T-shirt. I thought it should just read "Please Acknowledge My Pregnancy."
We had the good fortune of sitting next to this couple who my husband quickly dubbed The Potters (a Harry look-a-like and his wife). Mr. Potter looked like he spent the previous night eating cabbage and Cheetos while playing a fierce game of Dungeons and Dragons with strangers on the Internet; Mrs. Potter was sporting long purple nails, braided pigtails, the strangest lisp I've ever heard and that 'disturbed librarian' look (the kind of librarian who still reads V.C. Andrews and Nancy Drew). At one dramatic moment in the class, they asked the nurse if breastfeeding led to an increased chance of rickets -- and then I almost lost bladder control.
