Bradley Class #5: 1st Stage of Labor

Last night we were back on track in class, boy howdy. We went through the book (slowly, oh so slowly at times) and answered the questions, then had relaxation time, then a movie.

I think I'm getting better because I am short-tempered, which is always a sign that I'm getting better when I've been sick. Nobody could make me happy last night. The room was too bright; the floor was too hard; there wasn't enough space to lay down without other people touching my pillow with their feet; people were talking during relaxation and the movie. I was aware that I was feeling beastly and so I tried to rein it in.

People are getting more confident in our birth class, though. The horror porn last night was about sweet, young, first-time parents having a natural birth. The movie was pretty benign until the close-ups of crowning came on, and then, oh my (consider this your too much information warning). Watching the top of a baby's head pop in and out of a vagina like a jack-in-the-box is disturbing. The woman looked like she was in intense pain and just couldn't get the gumption up to push the kid past the pain (which of course she did, but by the shots of the clock in the movie, it looked like she pushed for two hours, which is a long time for the top of a kid's head to be popping in and out, I think).

After the movie, Jan asked what we thought of the movie and one of the guys said, "Grody." Then Jan asked if at least it didn't look painful, and I think all the women in the room said, "Oh no, that looked very painful. Incredibly painful." There wasn't even a pause in our responses. "But manageable," Jan says, "and how happy she was at the end."

Yes, yes, everyone's happy with the baby at the end. What's wrong with saying it looks painful? Pain can be managed if you know it will end at some point. The institutionalized birth machine in most US hospitals says that birth is just too painful to endure without drugs/interventions and the natural birth fascists say that birth is just a walk in the park if you just, well, walk in the park during birth. I think the truth is probably somewhere in between. But it's as much of a disservice to tell women birth doesn't hurt as it is to tell women that it is the most blindingly painful thing ever and cannot be managed without meds.