Bradley Class #1: Introduction

Yesterday we had to drop our friends off early at the airport so that we could make our first official birth class, so since it was important enough to cut their visit short, I should probably say something about it. I will have more to say about it when Mr. Secret Agent Man and I have completed our preliminary reconnaissance.

We got our workbooks. They're a little outdated in terms of appearance and font choice, but I'm also a snob about this. An earwig-looking bug ran between our pillows and The Boy killed it for me. It made me very happy that I had brought a blanket ($5, IKEA) for the "lie on the floor and practice relaxing" section of the class.

Practicing relaxing is difficult for me to do on a floor of an office. It's not all bad because we are there in the semi-dark with our partners massaging and rubbing us. I had a hard time getting into the spirit of things because the exercise is to consciously tense up a body part (hand, shoulder, foot) and then relax it. My first response was, well, duh, if you can tense something, you can relax it. But my dear husband took it completely seriously when I could not and him taking it seriously made me at least take him seriously, because he is so dear and sincere. Since I had a nasty bout with tendonitis a couple years ago (more than a couple now, hmm), I've had biofeedback therapy and the Boy and I have done a lot of relaxation exercises, which means we've practiced a lot of body consciousness/awareness exercises before. There was a time when I couldn't differentiate between relaxed and tense, so I should just get over my cheap self.

Then they showed a birth movie and this is where the class probably needed to be restructured so the relaxing was after the movie. I felt clinical towards the movie. The husband in the film was a bit of a smart ass and I was trying to decide if he was annoying to his wife or not, having (and being) a smart ass at home myself. This film was the first we've seen with full-on crowning (and some tearing), which is a little shocking. At some point during the movie, my husband gripped my shoulder very, very tightly, and while at first I thought he was trying to comfort me, I realized that this was not a happy moment for him.

Later on, he asked me if I had noticed the body language of one of the other men in class, and I had not.

"He looked like he didn't want to put his wife through that," he said, my sweet husband who hates to see me suffer.

While the whole labor thing sits heavily on the shoulders of women, at least, thank God, I don't have to decide how much to watch and I will be all-consumingly preoccupied. I don't have to worry about him or watch him be in pain. I may not feel that way when I want to pull his lower lip over his head during labor, but right now, I feel bad for the men sweet enough to not want to put their wives through labor.