Horror Movie

Last night we finally managed to attend a 'Labour and Birth' class, after it had been rescheduled from the week before last, after the educator didn't show up. We'd actually been warned about this class from people who had been to it previously - especially about the birthing video that is shown in the class. Not so much the actual birthing bit, but the fact that she hadn't been to see her beautician for quite some time (if ever!). The lack of orthodontic attention was also concerning.

The session went through the whole process, from pre-labour through to what you can expect for the first few hours after giving birth. Unlike other sessions, when prompted, most people were not asking any questions. I think they were a little concerned about what was coming up.

And so it was time for the video. The educator had stressed it was optional - and one look of 'Sally', the poor unfortunate who had put her hand up (legs up?) to be videoed, and one of our number took that option. Straight out to the hallway with a cuppa. It was shot in the 80's, in Adelaide, with the parents both somewhat one-sandwich-short-of-a-playlunch. The video, although quite full-on, wasn't as bad as we'd expected. Still, it was very confronting. It wasn't the head (barely) coming out of the pink bits that was the worst, it was the pain that she was in beforehand - when you could see that she was really stuggling. But the video-sponsor CIG nitrous-oxide was never far away (luckily!) The instructor/midwife also let us know that only once has she caught the husband/partner/support person taking a few quick tokes on the gas themselves!

So funnily enough, after the video the questions were coming thick and fast. The various pain relief options were discussed, and some of the participants also mentioned hypnobirthing, which we are going to investigate.