You rub my back, I rub your back.

Before anything else, I just want to point out that I'm not exactly in a lamaze class. I am in a Childbirth Preparation Class. Not only are we preparing for natural birth, but also for emergency births and c-sections, anything that can happen.

I love Rome and her class and I find myself taking my workbook everywhere I go. I can read about standard medical procedures and compare them with natural methods. There's also a checklist for things to bring to the hospital, and a chart for timing my contractions. Although I'm not having real contractions yet, my "practice" contractions (Braxton Hicks Contractions) are getting stronger by the day. It's pretty exciting.

The class is also great for bonding with your hubby. Last Saturday, we reviewed exercises, learned about the First Stage of Labor, how to recognize the signs and what to do. Apparently when you feel that this is it, you can take a bath, have a snack and take your time going to the hospital. It's sort of like preparing for work, if you're not running late that is.

I also read that it's good to know that labor is going to hurt like hell. It's no use saying it's nothing. I'm sure it's going to hurt. So Rome taught us different positions to help us get through labor. We can walk around, cowboy sit on a chair, etc. More importantly, our partners learned different ways to comfort us. One obvious way is to massage us, and apparently rolling a tennis ball over a painful area can do wonders. :)

Another way is to have a focal point, something to focus on instead of focusing on the pain. J tol dme that he'd bring a bottle of Pale Pilsen as my focal point. Haha! That might work! But I think I'd rather look straight at J, or at a picture of us together. A beer bottle might make me feel worse because I still won't be able to drink while I'm breastfeeding.

We also did some breathing exercises. Rome will give us one minute and we'll pretend we're having a contraction, and the men will breathe along with us. A simple thing like rubbing the tummy can bring a lot of comfort during a contraction, and to make things more interesting, our partners can rub our tummies from behind. I like that. It's like a really nice hug. :)

After all the breathing and massaging and pretending to be in pain, it was the men's turn to get a massage. I liked massaging J and watching the other women massage their partners. You can tell they knew where their favortie massage points are.

I think it was only fair that we massaged our partners because when you think about, these men are probably freaked out about the whole birth process as well. According to my OB, men are afraid to see the their wives in pain and it's understandable. But I think J will pull through...I hope he does! Hehe. And besides, after attending to me during labor and childbirth, he'll have Layla and she'll make him feel like it was worth the experience... and I can give him a massage again when I'll fully recovered. He'd like that. :)