In the Dark

This weekend we took our birthing class which turned out to be an adventure in its own right. We took the class right at Fairview Riverside, which is the hospital that we will be delivering at. There is a considerable amount of construction going on at FV right now, so we were prepared to find our way to the class via re-routed paths and red and yellow arrows. This took a little longer than we suspected, but overall, a good first few minutes. Then we arrived. No sooner had we sat down for 10 minutes than the entire power for the room (lights etc.) and powerpoint presentation were blacked out. There we are, 13 couples sitting in complete darkness as one of the presenter profusely apologizes while the other uses a handheld pamphlet and a flashlight to start the class. By pointing at the pamphlet with her 50 watt light bulb flashlight she was able to reflect at least the color of the paper to the larger group. We were already learning so much (insert sarcasm here).
The other presenter then went on a hunt for another room. Once one was located, and it appeared all of our problems were behind us, we took a tour of the hospital including labor and delivery and recovery. This was a bit eerie as the hallways were exceptionally quiet on the baby floor. As in you could nearly hear the clock ticking quiet. Were the women who delivered here all Scientologists? Where were the labor pain yells and all the 'family commotions"? Are we supposed to be this quiet? I spend a few minutes pondering what it would take to keep me this quiet and arrived at a) a serious amount of narcotics, resulting in a pleasant case of perma-grin plastered to my face and an inability to recognize I've even had a baby b) a series of dense pillows placed directly over my face, or c) incredibly soundproof walls. I'm not sure which will be the case, or if I'll be the first to break the sound barrier in the FV hospital.

So after our tour, which otherwise was nice, we found ourselves in another room, on a different floor, ready to learn more about birthing! We were in this room for about an hour and surprise, surprise, the whole room goes black. Back to the flashlights. I'm thinking we're jinxed, which can't be good when you are trying to learn about labor and delivery.
At this point our lovely presenters decided we all should get a refund, which was nice, but still we were at a loss for information, and with the busy-ness of our schedule, we really didn't have time to reschedule this fun event, so we asked many questions about how much we could learn from the teachers without electricity, Amish style,--turned out, not so much. The teachers didn't seem to think it was worth it to stay if the power was out and gave us permission to leave if we wanted to. But, we persisted on! We were anxious to learn some magic secrets about giving birth.

We were then off to lunch to bide some afternoon time, and when we came back our original first room was magically in working order. This was a pleasant surprise, but unfortunately the magic ended there.

When hearing about birthing classes I've always had a sense of the unknown, like it was the place you went to 'REALLY' find out what giving birth was all about. Where they revealed the secret of the breathing technique that magically relieves the mom of all labor pains. Turns out there is no such secret and their main message was, "do what works for you". We did learn some interesting facts about babies in general though. For instance, I learned that Drew has changed all of 5 diapers in his life. hmmm. Practice needed. I also learned that babies are sometimes hungry when you see their eyes moving around under their eyelids during REM. Don't ask me why, but apparently its true. We also learned that most people have very little recollection of delivering the placenta or being sewn up in there were tears, which makes me put a lot of faith in adrenaline. Oh, and not to forget the actual size of the needle used for epidurals- all 2 inches.

By the end of the classes I felt only a tiny bit more confident about how things will go and what will happen in the depths of the labor and delivery rooms. Even though things were a bit scary to learn about, it didn't make me any less anxious to meet our little guy.

So as it turns out, we remain in the dark, at least proverbially, about much of the birthing process. I suppose its something that comes with experience. At least we weren't literally in the dark all weekend long, because navigating how to have a baby sans lights would be quite a bit more intimidating.