I admit that I’d forgotten that I was supposed to look into childbirth classes until Jason (my husband) brought it up.

Then I forgot about it again until yesterday when I went online to my hospital’s website to look for classes.

Not knowing if this is normal or not, I have to admit that I didn’t like the scheduling.  There seemed to be only two classes offered a month. One that wouldn’t work for me because I work in the evenings. The other, a Saturday-Sunday class would work for us if it wasn’t eight days into September (9 days away) and the Sat/Sun class offered in October was oh-so-conveniently scheduled during my baby shower.  And why bother to take a class in my ninth month of pregnancy?  I barely want to do it now!

And then I started thinking…  do I even need this at all?

All I know is there’s supposed to be Lamaze; that’s it.  My sister Clair took Lamaze because she wanted to home birth her kids.  I don’t want to home birth my kids.

I’m getting an epidural damnit!  So what the hell do I need childbirth classes for?

Looking for a definition or some descriptor of what’s supposed to go on during class was a bit sketchy; a little of this and some of that.  At my hospital they offer a free tour of the birthing facilities with the class. The tour is offered separately with more scheduling conveniences than the childbirth class itself.

So you get a tour, get to involve your ‘partner’ and a chance to dispel any false notions you may have about birth.

One testimonial for the classes quoted a woman who was grateful for the classes simply because she’d assumed that an epidural was “…  a quick shot in the back… you could move around and do whatever you wanted, without feeling the contractions.”

I should feel bad for thinking ‘idiot’ when I read this because I happen to believe if you’re serious about your pregnancy you’d want to at least read up or do some research on all aspects, including your pain medication options.  That’s when I had the thought ‘do I already know enough?’

So I thought about what I still might want from the class, and the only thing I was left not knowing was 1) pain management before epidural 2) laboring positions with an epidural.  And both of these things I’ve learned from Youtube so…  check!

I’m pretty sure I’m still going to sign us up for a Newborn Care class. Though, for some reason Jason does not to want that class.  I myself am not too confident about it but maybe if I gave this class as much thought as I’ve given to the other, I might just see that I don’t need it either.

Or do you think I’m being overconfident?