Those birthing classes are pretty much just social events anyway. My wife and I went to exactly one and found it not particularly useful or necessary- just a bunch of other couples who wre endlessly fascinated by their own pregnancies. We never went back but the baby came out just fine anyway.
Well thank goodness we found our way back to the true root of all blame! It’s the man’s fault. We’re being kind hearted and not sexist or anything. So it’s ok to think the worse about her husband, but not her.
There’s plenty of plausible excuses, but it still doesn’t explain why she couldn’t have booked earlier. My guess is that the situation, as stress tends to, just brought out the worse in her. But that’s her problem and you don’t need to make excuses for her.
Or he could just offer her a plunger.
Just one of those arm-things with a clamp on the end – you know, for grabbing those out-of-reach things on high shelves.
I was trying to figure out how many pregnant women I’ve dealt with on the job to date. We run about 50 7 week classes, 30 weekend classes, and 12 basics classes, each with a limit of a dozen couples, per year. They don’t always fill, but usually do. But to make the math easier, I’ll just guestimate 10 women per class. That works out to about 900 women, and when you throw in the separate infant care and breastfeeding classes, we’re easily over a thousand every year. I personally interact with maybe a third of them. So in 3 years I’ve probably assisted around a thousand pregnant women, and none of them have even been close to this woman on the agitation scale.
As a guy who’s never been married or had a child, this has been quite the learning experience. I had no idea that my personal fascination with breasts would be overwhelmed with TMI – but when I started to hear conversations about breasts “clogging up” I started to shudder and I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever stopped. I never before thought about breasts as actual functional organs, and perhaps I would have been more blissful in continuing my ignorance.
Ahem…
[nitpick]
Horomones, not hormones. 
[/nitpick]
With no disrespect meant to Boyo Jim, I have to mostly agree. My birthing class was $100 and 8 hours of my life I’ll never get back. I learned very little that wasn’t already in books or self-evident, and I got horribly depressed by the maturity level and health/science knowledge of most of the other people who were going to be parents. The only useful thing I learned was that mothers had free access to the snacks (yum hoodsies!) and drinks in the birth center kitchen.
For the record, ValleyGirl was born in late January. Because of the Christmas holidays, they had stopped holding birthing classes right around the time I needed them. MrValley and I had to rearrange our schedule to fit the only available class.
It could have been that her husband was unsupportive, but she could also have a self-centered, manipulative bitch personality. Speaking as someone who is generally extremely high on the “egocentric, manipulative bitch” scale, I can just see myself trying to do something like that if I put off registering for birthing classes too long, and getting quite pissed when the world didn’t revolve around me. It’s a part of my personality that I try to avoid, but when I’m feeling stressed or emotional (and boy, pregnancy would do that), the egocentric, manipulative bitch in me comes out with a vengeance. I can just imagine that happening to her – she tries not to be a bitch, but when the pregnancy hormones are raging, that side of her personality comes out rather strongly.
You did what you could, if she doesn’t like it, that’s her problem. She’ll deal with it eventually.
I want to know if she calls back Monday and apologizes for her behavior. That wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Am I being whooshed? It’s correctly spelled hormone…unless this is some kind of joke that I don’t get, in which case, nevermind.
No offense taken. I wonder about these classes mayself, as women have been giving birth for about a million years or so without them, and continue to do so in most of the world. And I’d have to agree there’s nothing you can’t learn from a book, but I suppose you can say that about educational programs in almost any field.
Certainly there is useful information available in them, but by and large these courses are about making women more confortable and confident, and as such are probably more for pyychological than medical reasons. That’s one reason we won’t overfill them, we don’t want them to feel we’re packing a cattle car or airline flight with as many people who will fit in.
LilyoftheValley, you have pricey courses. Our “all the bells and whistles” class costs $95 and includes 21 hours of class time – 12 on pregnancy, labor and delivery; 6 on new infant care; and 3 on breastfeeding.
Everyone’s talking about the educational value of the classes. Have things changed? Back in the day, when I took the classes, the hospital had to have a certificate from the class on file or the husband couldn’t come into the delivery room and there was a good chance that you couldn’t choose your level of anesthesia, either.
I’m guessing that’s changed?
The word is hormones.
That post got me seriously questioning my sanity, and I’m not even pregnant!
I find myself extremely sensitive to criticism from strangers as well, Boyo Jim. No advice, but I do think you reacted in the best way you could have.
We certainly don’t have any rules like that, and we don’t require people to take the courses. Our hospital has about 3,500 births a year, so probably more than half the women don’t take any courses at all.
As far as the anesthesia goes, I’m pretty sure they can’t ignore the woman’s directions unless they believe it risks the life of mother or infant, and it doesn’t matter whether she’s taken any courses and is therefor theoreyically more capable of informed judgement.
Exactly what my ob/gyn told me the first time I was pregnant, and she was right. She said ‘your body knows what to do’, and it did it. Amazingly enough, the baby came out without the knowledge from childbirth classes! :eek:
How do you make a hormone?
Don’t pay her.
It’s not a class certificate, but I believe they won’t let you leave the hospital w/o having the baby seat installed correctly in the vehicle; worst case is the staff does it for you and makes you feel a little foolish. Happened to my pal Liz, whose hubby is not terribly mechanically inclined. Around here, though, the cop shops will help you install it, especially if you’re a big-as-a-house and ready to deliver pregnant woman.
One more thing following ZPG helps me to avoid!