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Columns > Balancing Act > #62: How It Happens
Dave takes on Birthing Class with his usual dash of humor and... wait a minute? Why is Dave talking about Birthing Class?  We took birthing classes when we were expecting Becca. Here's what you'll get at a typical birthing class: ﾕ We practiced "breathing". I don't know why you need to practice this ﾖ you've breathed roughly 30 times a minute for something like 26 years at that point, if you haven't mastered it by now maybe you have no business reproducing. ﾕ We watched videos of real live births. These births had either taken place during the 70s, or were filmed at a commune someplace inhabited entirely by fat, hairy people with no inhibitions about parading around naked in front of a camera, and giving birth while they were being filmed. And fluid... there was more body fluids flying around during these births than a human body is actually capable of holding. I had the impression that several of these women actually gave birth to large water balloons, that, sadly, popped on delivery. ﾕ They showed us around the labor/delivery ward of the hospital. ﾕ They give you all kinds of advice. They show you all kinds of signs. They tell you thinks like the different phases of labor, how long contractions last at each sign, and when you should begin pushing. I found this rather disturbing ﾖ wouldn't we be surrounded by people with actual medical careers who we could trust to know all this stuff and tell us what to do? Why do I need to know what a Braxton-Hicks contraction is, or how far the cervix dilates at each phase of labor? Was this a bad sitcom episode where we could expect to have to give birth in the back seat of a taxi or in an elevator that I'd need this information? ﾕ They encouraged us to call. Call when you have contractions. Call when you THINK you have contractions. Call when you DON'T have contractions. Call when you're not sure of something. Call when you have questions. Call when you're lonely and need a friend. But above all, if there was anything you took away from the class, it was that you MUST CALL WHEN YOU THINK YOU'RE IN LABOR. They'll tell you whether you're REALLY in labor and should come in. None of this was helpful. When Carla DID go into labor on that fateful day in April of 1999, we called the maternity ward of the hospital, just like they'd told us in the BIRTHING CLASS. Nurse 1: Hello? Me: Hi! I think my wife's in labor. She's having contractions. Nurse (sounding uninterested): Uh-huh. Me: They told us at the birthing class to call if we thought we were in labor. Nurse 1 (confused): Hold on. Nurse 1 (muffled now as she puts hand over phone): This guy says his wife is in labor. What should I tell him? Nurse 2 (also muffled, in the background): What??? I don't know. Have him call their OB/GYN I guess. Nurse 1 (no longer muffled): You need to call your OB/GYN (HANGS UP). Me: Uhhh.... Okay. OBGYN Nurse: Hello? Me: Hi! My wife's in labor. OBGYN Nurse: Okay... Me: So I called the Maternity ward like they told us in the birthing classes and they told us to call you... OBGYN Nurse: This is an OB/GYN clinic. Why would they have you call us? They need to deal with this. (HANGS UP) Me: Nurse 1: Hello? Me: Hi. It's me again. The OG/GYN department said you need to help us. Nurse 1: And there you have it. After a month of birthing classes, we knew just how much fluid a fat, hairy naked body could hold, we knew what channels the TV in the birthing room got, we had been reminded how to BREATH, and now, at the moment of truth, when my wife was in labor, we could go to the hospital. If we wanted to. I think it would be great if the nurses who teach the birthing classes actually had a meeting with the delivery nurses. They might find it very illuminating. Fortunately, the actual birth was much easier. I guess there's 3 groups of nurses: the teaching nurses who are professional breathing coaches, the answering the phone nurses who had their heads up their collective butts, and the giving birth nurses who are pretty good at what they do. So we drove to the hospital, found our way to the maternity ward. We'd seen it during our tour during our birthing class, but I'm pretty sure what with the sign in the elevator by the button for the 8th floor, and the fact that the elevator opens onto the labor/delivery reception desk on that floor, we could probably have found it on our own. The nurses were amazed to find that things were actually pretty far along ﾖ the contractions were strong and frequent. My wife had this crazy idea that she would try and have the baby without an epidural (to keep things natural and help with the bond between her and the baby). I think that's a wonderful idea ﾖ next time I need to have my teeth drilled, I also will forego anesthetic (to keep things natural and help with the bond between me and my new fillings). It was an interesting idea, and it lasted approximately 30 seconds. What's truly amazing is just how fast the epidural works, and how effective it is. Carla literally went from " There was only one problem ﾖ the epidural had ALSO slowed down the labor. When they put the epidural in, Carla was 8 cm dilated. 4 hours later, she was... 8 cm dilated. After another hour, around 10 PM, they decided to speed things up a little bit. They added pitosin to Carla's IV ﾖ pitosin is the drug they use to induce labor. I only found out about the pitosin later. You see, at the time, I was in the cafeteria eating a cheeseburger. Can you blame me? I hadn't eaten breakfast, Carla had called me at work right before lunch, and now it was 10 PM. We'd been sitting for hours with no progress whatsoever. And things didn't look like they were about to break, so Carla insisted (really! It was her idea!) that I get something to eat. So there I was in the cafeteria, 8 floors away, eating a cheeseburger, when I heard my name over the loudspeaker: "David Alpern, David Alpern, please report to Labor and Delivery". "Oh, s**t!" I thought. I took just a few minutes to finish my burger, made the ultimate sacrifice of throwing away my fries, and took the elevators up to the 8th floor and went to our room, where apparently every doctor in the world was gathered around the bed, staring at my wife's crotch. That's what we get for having the baby in a teaching hospital ﾖ whenever anything happens, a whole classroom full of doctors in training show up to observe and learn. The room was so crowded that bleachers had been installed in the back. A 10 foot stadium sized video screen showed a closeup of my wife's groin. Chearleaders were doing routines and 2 announcers in the corner gave a play by play. You may have seen it on cable. I fought my way through the crowd, and held my wife's hand, and a little while later Becca was born and we were parents. I won't go into details, but: ﾕ My wife never forgot how to breathe. So all that time on the floor in the classes was wasted. ﾕ There was a lot less fluid flying around that I'd been led to believe. I almost felt cheated. ﾕ After several annoyed glances from the nurses, I stopped talking about timing of contractions and how long she should push. The nurses pretty much just told us what to do anyway. I'd like to say that the rest of our stay was good, but I'd be lying. Apparently all the good nurses worked the night of the delivery, and were off for the next two days. While we were there we were plagued by incompetent idiots. Blithering idiots that we found out later didn't even work in that department, but were on loan from other departments. Giving birth is fairly difficult, I'm told, and leaves you exhausted, and the new baby may not be willing to let you sleep. So when you're trying to catch what sleep you can, and these imbeciles come in and wake you up just to ask if you need anything, it's annoying. REALLY annoying. By the time we took Becca home, we were exhausted, and couldn't wait to leave. And we knew NOTHING. After all those birthing classes, where no useful information was provided, we went home with a baby that no one had given us any inkling what to do with. Luckily my wife is the oldest of 9, and help raised all the other 8. She could have taught parenting classes herself. We had Abbie at a different hospital. And skipped the birthing classes. And had a much better nursing staff. Which was good. Abbie had some issues at birth. She had the umbilical wrapped around her throat as she came out, and was an unpleasant bluish color. They told us she was fine, and after a few hours under heat lamps and being massaged, her color came back to something approaching normal, but then tests showed a heart murmur and she failed her hearing screening, both of which cleared up within a few weeks. If we'd had the morons from our first hospital trying to get us through these things, I'd have lost my cool and been forced to pop a cap into one of their worthless, stupid asses. So that's how we had our kids. Two different hospitals, and two very different experiences. I can only wonder what the third one's going to be like. Yeah, that's right! The third. With fine chromosomes like mine, it would be a crime not to share more of them with the world. We're due in May. If we remember to keep breathing between now and then.
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