class this week

Class this week was about learning more about the different stages of labor, how to time contractions, when to go to the hospital. Our instructor likes her couples to go to the hospital when contractions have been 4 minutes or less lasting over one minute for over an hour. I guess at this point you are usually about 6cm dialated and prevents you from being at the hospital too long. We also did exercises where Mike leaned on my leg muscle so it hurt for 30sec, 60sec and 70sec while I did deep breathing to get a sense of the length of a contraction. It was funny, when Mike started leaning on my leg, I wanted to hit him and say, that hurts! But then I realized that is the point. I think a key to labor will be to take one contraction at a time, knowing each will end in the not so distant future. We also watched another birth video, I'm not going to lie, it still gives me the heebee geebies to see a baby's head come out of a vagina, but the birth was very calm, not at all like the screaming in movies.