I’m good at coming up with titles for my blogs. I like this one in particular. I mean, “child birth class and stuff.” I mean, that’s so articulate.

Well, articulation is the KEY my friends when you are graduate school educated, like I am. Words. Words are good . Words are hard. For example, this past Sunday in my Sunday school class while discussing lying with a bunch of teenagers, one of our students said “Mr. Lulu, you are so articulate using big words and Ms. Friess, you’re all like ‘lying is bad.'” The conversation went something like that. But it’s true. Out the window. Words are hard. I did so well my second trimester with remembering things and my brain being on top of everything and now…no. Did you know that frozen food is kept in the pantry? And that to take someone coffee, you should probably put the cup of coffee in your hand before walking up the steps? Craziness.

So Mr. Lulu and I went to 8 hours of childbirth class this past weekend. I was praying I wasn’t going to freeze up like I did on the hospital tour. There’s even a photo of me floating around on the interwebs of me after the hospital tour. Here it is…See…completely frozen. Same look on my face and everything. I never expected to be that person who couldn’t deal with watching a bed break down, but hey, apparently I am!

The good news is that at class, I was my normal, happy, laughing self who was joking along with everyone else. Not to say there weren’t parts of me that twinged (did you HAVE to show us the photos of degrees of tearing during a delivery???) and there were times when I felt a little faint (again, uber descriptions of the steps of an epidural were probably not necessary). However, I feel a little more confident and a little more in control of the situation. I mean, as much control as I can have when it comes to a baby popping out of me in some way, shape, or form. Because, I kind of assume that it’s all going to go down like this… or maybe not.

I think my favorite part of class (as an aside), was when another mom-to-be sat there with her eyes getting wider and wider and wider and finally said “WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SO HORRIBLE?!?!?!” Agreed.

I was comforted by the fact that if I feel like I need to try different positions, I can. I’m not sure I entirely understand why most of the labor and delivery process is about the convenience of doctors. And maybe if I had a little more forethought into this whole thing, then I may have chosen to go to a birthing center, but because of the complications I had getting here, I do find comfort in knowing that I will be at a full service hospital.

OH! something I forgot about, but the nurse who taught the class was SO KIND to remind me of…I’m a redhead. And in the last 33 years, I’ve taken pride in being a redhead. And while South Park and others (*ahem* my Sunday school class *ahem*) like to make comments about redheads, we are very special people. So special, my nurse said “I’m worried about YOU bleeding.” Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I forgot. We’re bleeders. Usually once you get us bleeding (not necessarily an arm prick, but when things are injured, we bleed. We also feel pain differently. We tend to require more anesthetic but tend to respond well to morphine (I can concur with that statement).

So I hope when I go to the hospital to deliver the Raptor, we’ll all have the understanding that I’m a bleeder who requires more pain meds. And I do hope that they don’t go into explicit detail on how they are administering those pain meds. *shudder*

But all is well and going well and I can’t complain too much. Or if I do, I save that for Mr. Lulu to hear. And then I feel guilty about it. Terrible cycle… But anywho. All is well.