Last Sunday, Ava and I went to our first Bradley Method Class.  The Bradley Method is a birthing class that works off the mother’s breathing and positioning to help have a natural birth.  Ava is really determined to go natural.  And it makes sense for a number of reasons:  there are too many cesarean births today.  There is better bonding with the baby immediately after birth and there are no drugs involved.  I realize that things happen and I’m not judging anyone out there that uses drugs during delivery.  That’s their choice, but our choice for this birth is no drugs…. all natural baby. 

Today I am in Florida with very limited internet access so I can not look up all the stats for cesarean births, etc. In addition, Ava works once a week on the OB floor, so she sees how the process goes.  Women come in too early… the nurses/doctors don’t necessarily have the time to devote to labor so they start pushing the drugs.  And once the drugs start, more are soon to follow.  Again, no judgment here, just my interpretation of what she tells me. 

So, begins our first class for Junior’s exit strategy.  How can we deliver a baby without medication, with great coaching (from me), with lots of love and support from friends and family and have the best experience possible? 

Our first class was pretty simple stuff.  We did the introductions: name, doctor’s name, hospital, occupation, due date, is this our first baby and why we are attending class.  Pretty easy questions.  Well, except the occupation stuff.  Some interesting facts: the class was all white, mostly educated couples and all in their 30’s or early 40’s.  We are the only same sex couple.  We are all there for the same reasons:  How do we go natural and also learn about their options, if they are unable to go natural.

After we finished the introductions from the instructor and the couples, we watched a brief video on babies.  It was very brief:  I think we all know how an embryo develops into a fetus.  The interesting part I learned in the class is that 70% of this class is directed to the coaches (that’s me).  We are the ones helping with breathing, working with our patners on positioning, jibbing and jabbing through each of the contractions.  Helping them stay focused.  A contraction should really last only one minute.  We can all do just about anything for one minute, right?  Well, it’s our job to help our partners get thru each one of those minutes.  And to remind them that this is just a temporary pain and it will eventually end.  Right?  That’s what they say — right?  That’s what I’m banking on.  Right….right?

Once the video was over, the reminder of the class was an exercise on teamwork (more about that later), we did some stretching, went over some exercises and had some snacks.  The real introductions to the other couples happened during the snack time. 

The teamwork exercise was very interesting.  If you think about it, this is truly the beginnnig of a lot of exercises on teamwork, aka parenting.  For this exercise, Ava was blindfolded.  Step one - take away all control  Oh nelly.  Step two - put Isabella in charge.  “WHAT!?”  Step three: Start MY breathing exercises NOW. We’re still 3 months away from our due date.  Anyway, I’m in charge and I have to lead Ava around the atrium (we’re at a medical office building).  We have to go up some stairs, down some stairs, make a couple left and right hand turns and finally have her drink from a water faucet. 

I’m still breathing in and out…in and out.  So we grab hold of each other, in a somewhat desparate hold (”I can do this…. whatever you do, don’t let her trip”) and we head out the door.  The first set of stairs is only 4 or 5 steps, it’s not a complete flight of steps.  As we are walking along, I just start reading the instructions aloud.

“Honey, we’re just heading down a long hallway and we’re going to climb up some steps.  You can do it, no big deal.”  We relax a bit, I now have feeling in my hands again and we proceed up the stairs.  It goes very well and we go on.  I point out the water fall on the left.  The elevator on the right. 

“That’s the one we used to go to our doctor’s appointment for our insemination.” 

“You’re doing great.  You look good.  We’re heading to some more steps, heading down.  Go ahead and grab the railing.  One more step… that’s it.  Take your time.”

We were getting in the groove.  Starting to click…. we were  becoming that fine oiled machine again.

“Wave to the security man.”  I said. 

“Honey focus.”  Ah, there it is, Ava grabbing a little bit of control back. 

Now we are heading to the last hallway, back to the conference room. 

“Ok, we have to get a drink of water.  We can do this.”  And we do.  I assist her with finding the water and, phew, we’re done.  Phew.  She didn’t fall or even stumble.  We laughed quite a bit.  We connected and we made it through our first “Isabella is in charge birth class exercise.”  Phew.  We talked about the exercise as a class and some women hated it since it was a lose of control.  Others were ok with it.  It was really an exercise in allowing someone else to be in control and to trust them with this control.

It reminded me of our first tandem bike ride together.  Ava/I bought a tandem over the summer; mainly so we could ride together.  We don’t ride the same pace, so this is a perfect way to enjoy biking… attached to pedals on a green bike pedaling down the road with me in charge.  Oh and she can’t see anything ahead of me.  Sound familiar?  I try to tell her about bumps in the road but every once and a while, I’d miss one.  I would hear, “HONEY!” from the back.  Need I say more.

The blindfold exercise was really a refresher course for us.  Looking back, it was pretty easy.  We work very well together.  But it does make you stop and think.  Teamwork like this does not just come automatically.  It takes trust, openiness and communication.  Ava had to totally trust me.  The blindfold forced this trust on her.  We both had to be open to the exprience in order to truly learn and grow from it.  And we definitely had to communicate.  All of these things are just part of what makes a not only a great partnership, but the ground work for a loving and long lasting relationship.  Throw in a pinch of honesty, laughter and good sex, blend it all together and you’ve got something there.

I asked her later if she ever peeked and she said No.  She felt it would take away from the experience.  Now that is complete trust.  Crazy and yet so nice.

Sweet dreams to my Ava and Ava Junior.