Lamaze Narrative

Lamaze Class Narrative

I took Lamaze and Child birthing classes when I was pregnant with my first child in April of 2006. Throughout the process and especially now that I’ve already had my second child I can see the pros and cons of taking Lamaze classes. Since I am an optimistic person, I will start with the pros. After completing the classes I feel like I was extremely more informed about the labor process itself and the stages of labor and delivery. I was actually able to see and feel myself going through those stages during my labor and that was very beneficial to me at the time because I was actually able to mentally put myself on a timeline and knew what stage I was in and how many more I had to go. It’s always easier for me personally to get through something tough or painful if I can see the finish line or at least be able to start a count down and say, “Okay, one down, two to go.” If I hadn’t had the Lamaze class then I would have had no idea what was happening or what to expect to happen next. One of the other definite pros of the Lamaze classes was learning about the epidural. We learnt how it is put in and some the positive and negative things about having one. I knew that I would probably want to request one when the pain got to be too much but I did have my doubts because I have heard a lot of negatives things about epidurals in the past. Fortunately, my instructor was able to put my worries to rest by educating me further on the topic and giving me enough confidence in epidurals that I decided if I was able to get one during labor I would. I am happy to say I have no regrets on the epidural, whatsoever. I was thrilled to find out that since I would be delivering my baby at Coffeyville hospital I wouldn’t have to pay for the Lamaze class. They also provided our class with lots of goodies each time we met. This included diapers, formula, magazines for expecting mothers, tons of brochures on parenting, babies, and pregnancy,