Monday, July 30, 2007

The Tyrees Take "Crib" Notes

The arrival of our son is fast approaching, so Melissa and I have taken Breastfeeding and Labor & Delivery classes at Maury Regional Hospital.

I attended the classes with Melissa because of a natural curiosity and because it’s my husbandly duty. Remember in the wedding vows about “I promise to love, honor, cherish, and discuss the relative merits of breastfed stools and formula stools”?

But I’m not going to pat myself on the back too much. You could say that taking the classes gives the father an appreciation of what the mother goes through; but after hearing about epidurals, episiotomies, and the like, I’d say that’s like claiming that attending a pillow fight gives you an appreciation of what O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole went through.

Discussion of babymaking elicits giggles among carefree high school students; but for more mature pupils, the accelerated childbirth courses are serious business. For the husband of a pregnant woman, talk of sex is like Health, Biology, and Ancient History all rolled into one.

Participants in the classes soon learn the warning signs that it’s time to drop everything and rush to the hospital. Of course men already know that the surest sign is “the score is tied with 30 seconds left to play.”

Students learn that the timing of contractions requires a whole new way of measuring time. The way some people define “just a minute” while applying makeup or hogging the bathroom, the baby could be shaving during the course of a “five-minute contraction.”

The classes are valuable for showing expectant parents just how little they know; without the class, their total ignorance would go undiscovered until the happy day the kid became a teenager. Aren’t we lucky that newborns just cry, instead of copping a teenage attitude like “A whole new world? But there’s nothing to doooooo!” or “But all my friends have umbilical cords!”

Expectant mothers are advised to pack a “goody bag” containing items such as extra socks, camera film, and chewing gum, to cut down on last-minute pandemonium when labor begins. In many cases, the baby’s conception was a comically disorganized event, with the father forgetting to mention his name, address, or real phone number. (“I promise I’ll call you…uh…Cindy?”)

The instructors are quick to dispel old wives’ tales and other myths: the baby’s sex can be determined by fetal heart rate; a mother can induce labor with castor oil; great uncle Percival will be cast into the fiery pits of hell if the baby isn’t saddled with the name “Percival,” etc.

Just like most people never use iambic pentameter or quadratic equations after high school, participants in the childbirth classes will retain only key points. Mere months after learning ten-dollar terms such as “cephalopelvic disproportion” and “placental abruption,” their vocabulary seldom stretches beyond, “Come on – open wide. Choo choo! . Num num!”

The lectures we attended were greatly enhanced by the use of appropriate videos. I’ll never forget the heavy breathing, grunting, straining, pushing, and abandonment of all modesty in one of the videos. And that was just the part about getting the baby into a good preschool.

My favorite video was the one with the “Roots”-inspired scene that will haunt me for the next 18 years: the newborn is held high and told, “Behold the only thing greater than yourself -- the HMO rule book!”

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