lamaze = lacrap?

I'm not sure if my blog gives this away or not, but I'm kind of jaded and pessimistic about some things. Pregnancy is one of those things. Maybe it's because I spent 18 weeks of my life either throwing up or trying not to throw up 24 hours a day. I loved this baby from the moment I found out about him, but it's hard to see the beauty in pregnancy when your experience is so bad.

I've been pretty realistic about pregnancy and I've approached it with no expectations. I'm planning on doing the same thing with childbirth and motherhood. A lot of people have shared their opinions and advice with me. There are a lot of people whose opinions I value and others that I just don't...

Try this method, don't try that method, you have to breastfeed, breastfeeding destroys your boobs, you need a detailed birth plan, throw the birth plan out the window because it won't matter anyway, don't resign yourself to a C-section, try to get the baby to flip on your own, epidurals are huge no-nos... blah, blah, BLAH!

It all begins to sound like a broken record and a whole bunch if gibberish. My mother had two healthy babies and had two C-sections. For a long time, that was the only "birth story" I'd ever heard. I don't have negative opinions about C-sections. A lot of my friends and family members ended up having to be induced and then ended up having C-sections after many many hours of labor. Lots of healthy babies there, too.

I've approached baby reading cautiously and taken it all with a grain of salt. (I hate that expression) I will definitely be listening to my pediatrician and taking his or her advice, but with so many differing opinions, too much reading can lead to a lot of confusion.

Tomorrow we're going to our childbirth class. We chose to knock it all out in one Saturday rather than attend five different nightly sessions over five weeks. We may not come back after lunch if we think it's a bunch of phooey anyway.

I may get some hate mail for saying this, but I just don't think that learning how to breathe during a class when I'm not experiencing severe discomfort and the worst pain of my life will be beneficial to me when I'm actually going through it. I don't think I'll remember a thing about lamaze in those moments! And I'm fairly certain that anyone that tries to tell me how to breathe will get a fist to the face. We almost didn't sign up for the classes at all, but I decided we needed to in order to feel like I covered all the bases.

The one thing I'm looking forward to about tomorrow is the part where we get the tour of "The Stork's Nest" (where the babies are born) and the part where they tell us about anesthesia. God bless anesthesia.

ETA: I forgot to mention that I asked my doctor what on Earth a birth plan actually is and she said, "Don't worry about it. You're definitely not a birth plan kind of girl." Told you so!