Childbirth class Part I: The parts of the body

(I'm writing this at 35 weeks -- in two weeks Benjamin will be considered "full term"!!)

The last two Thursday nights we've been taking a childbirth course at the hospital where we will be having our baby. Actually, it's not at the hospital, but in a little house dedicated to childbirth near it. I have the impression that Martha Jefferson Hospital is very invested in being the progressive birth choice in the area -- although they only have 2 midwives (which is 2 more than UVA hospital...). We have three more evening classes to go to and a baby care class (which is often class 6, but we were afraid the baby would arrive early, so we are taking it early since it's "baby care basics") and I have a lactation class (that Brian is free to go to as well).

In our class there are about 8 couples and we are probably the oldest couple -- though a former local newscaster and his wife are probably close to our age (hard to tell) and there is a man who looks a lot older than his wife (who looks like she's maybe 20). Most of the couples are American, one is Chinese (they might also be closer in age to us) and one is Venezuelan (though so far it's only been the wife and her friend because her husband is away on business -- I was a little excited the first time I saw these two women, before we all introduced ourselves, because I thought we had a lesbian couple in the class). The other couples look young to me, which means that I'm already thinking like an old married lady... Some of the couples come from out-of-town and will have to drive 30 minutes to get to the hospital once labor begins! (It should take us maybe 3 minutes once I get myself into the car).

All this to say that the class seems to be made up of people of different backgrounds, though we haven't really had much time to get to know each other.

The first class dealt primarily with vocabulary and the stages of labor. Our instructor told us she was going to use the terms for different parts of the body and apologized before saying "vagina." I was a little surprised, but figured she has to deal with a vast variety of students and that she doesn't want to offend anyone and wants to keep people in the class so that they'll go into labor informed. Of course, apologizing for saying "vagina" would offend some people.

In any case, we went over vocabulary and the stages of labor. I went home with the question "What exactly is the placenta?" -- thanks to Brian who pointed out that when she talked about the placenta she only pointed to one area of the diagram of the uterus. Reading my Lamaze book yesterday I discovered that I in fact didn't really know where the placenta was, just what it did -- somehow I missed that in 9th grade biology. I thought the placenta lined the whole uterus and the amniotic sack. It does not. It's only one section (see the diagram). I am appalled that at age 35 I didn't know that.

Ok, that's enough for now. Next time I'll write about childbirth and PAIN.

-maman