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We didn't go anywhere this year. We didn't even buy a turkey (too heavy.) Instead I made a chicken and some roasted vegetables and called it a day. The night before I hadn't slept much so I didn't even get dressed, but that's been the norm with this preggo. Clothes can be so restrictive. Baby no like.

At around 7 Doug went to a friend's house for dessert and I got comfortable in front of the TV. This is my usual time to feel the baby doing her body pops (yes, much like ReRun.) Only I wasn't feeling them. I wasn't feeling her hardly at all. So I did what I thought was best, that is, I screamed the baby's name loudly and started gently thumping my belly. I made hot chocolate. I took a bath. Nothing. Then I did the worse thing of all. I went on the internet and read about baby movements. Some site said I was supposed to feel 10 an hour. Then I did the next worst thing of all. I freaked out. Doug was home by this time and after calling our doctor (not there), we decided to take a little walkee to the nearest hospital. I was crying as I got dressed but in the back of my head thought that this kid would start kicking like crazy on the stroll and then I'd get to come home and feel relieved.

No such luck.

We got to the hospital at 9:45, and (still crying) were lead to the triage unit on the labor floor. One nurse was nice, telling me that everything was going to be all right, and the other one sucked on a lollipop and was slightly terse with me. It didn't feel nice, but whatever. I just wanted to hear my baby's heartbeat. And I did. That was the good news. The bad news, or rather the strange news, is that as I was being monitored for baby movements they noticed that I was having contractions. Five minutes apart. That's evidently not a good thing when you're not dilated.

So the next thing happening was me pretending to be a-okay with two nurses jabbing an IV into my hand (3 bruises have appeared already) to get the contractions to stop. I was laying on my back, belts strapped around my waist to monitor heartbeat and contractions, IV in my left hand and a click buzzer that I was supposed to press on every time I thought I felt the baby move in my right one. I felt like I was on some sick gameshow. A doctor who looked like Taye Diggs came by to feel my cervix to see if it was open. It wasn't, so that meant that I wasn't in labor or preterm labor but was just having contractions. Which again, the doctor didn't like. After another bag of IV juice and a shot of something in the arm (not to mention a very embarrassing walk to the bathroom with my underwear around my ankles), the contractions stopped. We got to have a sonogram to see little Baby Rushkoff swimming around -- and moving. It's just that she's gotten so big that she has less room to kick violently and so I don't feel her breakdancing anymore. Which is so weird because those movements hurt, but as soon as they stopped, I missed them. On the walk home, 3 and a half hours later, I let it all out. I was scared. But I also realized how I much I care about this baby. Whatever she needs, wants, desires, is fine with me. I just want her to be ok (she is moving as I write this.) Whew. On a lighter note, I also realized that I hadn't even bothered to bring my purse with me -- although I did purposely throw a lipstick in my coat pocket. Typical.

So, I'm ok. I'm cried out, bruised, tired and my husband has a migraine -- but I'm fine for now. Right now we're washing baby clothes and getting my hospital bag ready because my doctor said that if contractions begin and I do start to do my cervix thang, he won't stop it. I'm 35 weeks pregnant, so it's ok.

And I'm thankful for that.

Week 1

I didn't think I was going to write about going to birthing class but the sessions have been so unreal that I thought I'd post (which means complain and vent).

Disclaimer: this is no dis to the natural ladies who choose no drugs and want to see every little thing happening "down there." I applaud you ladies; I just can't go there myself. Now, pass me some of that them there epidural juice!

First Class: We got there two minutes late and were greeted by a caffeinated woman who looked at me and said "You must be Barbara." But she said it like this: "YOU MUST BE BARBARA." She was like Regis Philbin on crank. She talked loud. LOUD. So we take our seats, which are positioned in a circle. Oh great, sharing time. We go around the room after the teacher tells us that on tonight's agenda is a childbirth movie. My temperature goes up a drop as I suppress my urge to run out of the room. When it's my turn to say my shpiel (tell how many weeks I am, etc.), I do. Then I say "and I won't be watching the movie tonight. I know what happens already. I'm good. Thanks." No laughter. Not even nervous laughter. No eye contact. No nothin'. The teacher then says that the film isn't "that bad." That's not really good enough for me, but there aren't straps on the seat, so I know I'll be up and out in the hallway drinking some of that free cranberry juice when the movie starts anyway.

Class then officially starts, which consists of being overloaded on information about things like how I shouldn't even bother coming to the hospital until contractions are 5 minutes apart (right), a bloody show, mucous plugs and other word combinations like that. Bursting water is discussed. Breathing techniques are discussed. What to pack in your bag is discussed. Then the movie starts. Two couples were filmed in the process of the birthin'. The women were robust types who wore no tops on the birthing beds and took hikes at the start of their labor (seriously.) It was hard to watch this part as the women were in great pain. I found it even more upsetting than the dreaded baby head pop. My "favorite" part was when their husbands got right in front of their faces and told them to breathe or gave them some other command. RIGHT IN THEIR FACE. I could just imagine feeling the pain of dilating and having Doug right in my face telling me things like relax or breathe or that I'm doing great. I get the sentiment, just GET OUT OF MY FACE.

As I held back my urge to scream at the screen, the baby head started coming out. I took this opportunity to avert my eyes and study the people in the class. About half of them weren't looking either and the other half that were looking, looked disgusted. Gee, thanks people for backing me up when I said I didn't want to look. Wimps. Yes, they're wimps. Bigger wimps than me because I at least I had the nerve to say something and to be honest about it, but they just went along, too afraid to speak their minds.

Wimps.

Week 2

We got to class early and pulled into the ridiculously expensive parking lot with snacks in tow. Class is three hours long, from 6-9, which means that I need to be fed (and burped) at least twice. We walked into the same room as last week and saw that everyone was in their same seats except for one borerline surly couple. They were in our seats. Hmmm. The teacher greeted me and made a remark about the couple that were sitting in our seats. Not wanting to make a big deal out of it, we sat somewhere else and just glared hard at these folks instead. It might have been fun to use one of those in-your-face birthing moments with them. GET OUT OF MY SEAT --right in their faces -- could have been quite effective!

No films were being shown tonight -- thank the lord. (THANK YOU LORD.) Instead we talked about labor (complete with visuals such as smiley faces, not so smiley faces, frown faces and angry faces. Ah, the many moods of labor.) Since I was sitting down, armed with food, I didn't freak out that much, even when the teacher said that labor could take 24 hours. Instead I focused on the breathing techniques we were learning, which were very similar to yoga breaths. I was doing all right too until the teacher told us to get up with our and walk in a circle around the room to slow dance type of music.

Really.

She dimmed the lights and everything. I did as I was told until I doubled over in laughter. We did more breathing, even though it was hard to concentrate in a room full of people who didn't seem to be taking it seriously. I was the only one in the room who did yoga and knew the breath and for that I kinda got the stinkeye. Maybe they thought I was being superior but I wasn't. I so wasn't. Maybe I was wrong about the class. Maybe they were waiting for a diatribe from me about films again.

Sorry to disappoint, people.

Week 3

The other people were in our seats again, so we sat somewhere else this week. I was ready to eat as soon as we arrived but the teacher told us to follow her on a tour of the hospital. We started in the lobby where we stood for way too long and talked about parking options. (The sciatica was just starting.) From there we went to a series of elevators and got directions on where to go when we first arrive. This is where my head started to spin. See, I don't like hospitals. They are full of sick people and sad people and people crying and oh no, here we go to the birthing floor and all I could think about was, am I going to hear screaming women in labor pain? The knees weaken, the heart races. We get to the floor and it's nice enough. We stand in the entrance way and the teacher talks way too long about what happens when we get there. I have a hard time concentrating as I keep thinking that I am going to see some crazy pregnant woman running around demanding morphine (foreshadow of my visit?)

Next, we enter a typical birthing room . It's dimly lit and seems pretty comfortable. Unfortunately there aren't many seats in the room so I lean myself up against a wall and listen to the teacher talk about "the process." As I tried to focus on the positives, like the VCR player and the fact that the room has an adjoining bathroom, I can feel myself slipping. Like, actually slipping. As I slunk to the floor and put my hands on the cold terra firma, I tried to tune the teacher out as she used words like forceps and suctioning-the-baby-out. I looked around the room and saw that everyone else was calm although I did see other women on the ground, rubbing their lower backs. But no one was wearing the pained look that I had. "I don't feel so good," I said to Doug. He quick pulled out a muffin for me and again I tried to concentrate on that rather than the teacher's comment that the after-birth nurses "weren't that great." Please to explain, why is she telling us this?

Still afraid of seeing some woman with half a baby hanging out of her, I decide the best thing to do is just tune everything out. Tune out the gaggle of nurses at the station drinking coffee, tune out the bright red newborn baby that was just born one hour ago, tune out the feeling that I am for real going to pass out. Time for more muffin, perhaps.

As we walk back to start the second part of class, I feel the waterworks coming on. All I wanted to do was cry. Everything was feeling ultra real to me and it was coming on all at once. I'm a person who likes information -- I mean I was a research reporter at a weekly magazine who fact checked until 2 in the morning, but I didn't want to know everything this time. I wanna go home! Break time was next and that's when I said to Doug that I wanted to leave. The second part of the class were two films on c-sections and episiotomies. Sigh. Before I could yell out bleccch in that tone I get, Doug had already grabbed my coat. I let the tears flow in the elevator and only when I was home, in front of the TV watching The Apprentice , could I tune everything out.

("Teacher, you're fired.")

Week 4

I had a new attitude for tonight's class. And that outlook was, we can leave at any time that we want to!

Class was in a new room tonight -- one with no windows and a large table that had baby supplies on it. On our chairs was a baby doll that we were going to learn to care for. Our baby was big, at least 15 pounds and -- big. And ugly. And monstrous. The baby was so heinous as a matter of fact that Doug told me later in the evening that he felt he couldn't bond with it. I reminded him that it was a plastic doll and that he's not supposed to bond with it. He had fun with it regardless -- pushing in it's head to make it conelike (realistic, we found out), swaddling it to look like a Middle Eastern woman and twisting its' head around exorcist style.

We are going to be such good parents.

He held the "child" as we watched a film with really bad animation on how to take care of a baby and it's gross, stumpy umbilical cord. Interesting piece of cinema. Especially liked the part of feeling that you will want to, at some point, shake your child because it is so getting on your nerves. I was in prime tune-out mode though, and only paid attention to what I thought was helpful. Finally, I was learning something!

The rest of class was spent diapering, giving the fake baby a fake sponge bath with fake water and of course, swaddling. In between the teacher would blurt out helpful and not so helpful hints. She wasn't hollering so much at this point but she was talking fastfastfastlikethiswithoutanyspacesandonandonandon.

We took some notes. We got through it. Then we kind of decided that we weren't going to the last class next week. It's a wrap up of the previous four classes, taught by all of us. I remember some things but not all. And I'm sure everyone else is the same way. Nah, I think we'll stay home. practice breathing and type up our notes into concise tipsheets.

Wish us luck.