At the ante natal classes the main impression is that everyone is terrified. How much will it hurt? Will I be able to stand it? What’s going to happen to my body? It’s all right for me. The guys all just sit there, not saying anything. There’s nothing growing inside us, pushing our organs aside, softening our pelvises and altering our centre of gravity.
Pain relief. This is important. There are several methods from the full-on epidural through ‘gas and air’, down to simple controlled breathing. The midwife shows us a fuzzy video explaining it. I think the vertical hold on the telly has gone. Keith Chegwin is presenting the video, and it’s so old that he is still with Maggie Philbin in it. I know this because she’s in it too. They aren’t having the baby; they leer over some woman who is sweaty with labour, inhaling from a facemask. The expectant father has a fine moustache.
The upshot seems to be that if you don’t put ‘ I want an epidural’ down in your birth plan, you aren’t getting one. This is because they are such a pain in the arse to set up, what with a tube going into your spinal column and what-have-you, that if you leave it to the day to decide, then, by the time you’ve made up your mind it will be too late to put it in. They don’t say this of course. Epidurals are brutal anyway, and Lynne says she doesn’t want one. Well, that’s what she’s saying for now. Maybe I should write ‘no epidural’ in the birth plan, in pen just to make sure.
‘Gas and air’ is actually stuff called Entenox, which could more properly be called ‘gas and oxygen’ and seems good and harmless. You can also get a shot of morphine, which sounds good to me, but they are a bit nervous about this because it can make the baby come out all woozy. Moving away from the chemicals, a TENS machine works by putting an electric current through pads attached to your back. The hospital used to have some, but they lent them all out and nobody gave them back. We are going to get one from someone at Lynne’s work.
Still, all the girls still seem terrified. Looking around the other people at the class Lynne and I make up little stories about them, making guesses about their lives. The tall, glamourous girl in the good boots sits next to this big pudding with a shaved scalp and sloping forehead. Surely that’s just her friend...? No, look, they’ve both got wedding rings on. No way! The ginger girl next to the guy in the suit. They sit there grimly and later on I see them arguing in whispers beside the door. The next class, she’s there on her own. Oh-oh. The third class and he’s back again, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. They both look happier. See, it’s all there for you. It’s like a soap opera.
Slightly worrying, they keep talking about things we should say to the community midwife, but we haven’t seen one yet.
Pain relief. This is important. There are several methods from the full-on epidural through ‘gas and air’, down to simple controlled breathing. The midwife shows us a fuzzy video explaining it. I think the vertical hold on the telly has gone. Keith Chegwin is presenting the video, and it’s so old that he is still with Maggie Philbin in it. I know this because she’s in it too. They aren’t having the baby; they leer over some woman who is sweaty with labour, inhaling from a facemask. The expectant father has a fine moustache.
The upshot seems to be that if you don’t put ‘ I want an epidural’ down in your birth plan, you aren’t getting one. This is because they are such a pain in the arse to set up, what with a tube going into your spinal column and what-have-you, that if you leave it to the day to decide, then, by the time you’ve made up your mind it will be too late to put it in. They don’t say this of course. Epidurals are brutal anyway, and Lynne says she doesn’t want one. Well, that’s what she’s saying for now. Maybe I should write ‘no epidural’ in the birth plan, in pen just to make sure.
‘Gas and air’ is actually stuff called Entenox, which could more properly be called ‘gas and oxygen’ and seems good and harmless. You can also get a shot of morphine, which sounds good to me, but they are a bit nervous about this because it can make the baby come out all woozy. Moving away from the chemicals, a TENS machine works by putting an electric current through pads attached to your back. The hospital used to have some, but they lent them all out and nobody gave them back. We are going to get one from someone at Lynne’s work.
Still, all the girls still seem terrified. Looking around the other people at the class Lynne and I make up little stories about them, making guesses about their lives. The tall, glamourous girl in the good boots sits next to this big pudding with a shaved scalp and sloping forehead. Surely that’s just her friend...? No, look, they’ve both got wedding rings on. No way! The ginger girl next to the guy in the suit. They sit there grimly and later on I see them arguing in whispers beside the door. The next class, she’s there on her own. Oh-oh. The third class and he’s back again, wearing a t-shirt and jeans. They both look happier. See, it’s all there for you. It’s like a soap opera.
Slightly worrying, they keep talking about things we should say to the community midwife, but we haven’t seen one yet.
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