Bradley Reunion

As my pregnancy progressed and I was getting into my sixth and seventh month and began to think about labor and childbirth as a real occurrence, I started contemplating the idea of going naturally, without drugs. I knew there was no way I could do this without some preparation and education. I read a little here and there about different methods but eventually shrugged off the idea and decided I was too wimpy to do it naturally and would end up with the epidural.

Then one weekend during the end of October I went to a friend's wedding reception. There I was met by a couple high school friends, some that I had kept in contact with and others I hadn't seen in years. One friend, whom I had actually stayed fairly close with (she got married the day before I did -- to her high school sweetheart, also a friend of mine) and I knew she had recently had a baby. Her baby was a month old and she looked fabulous and somehow we got on the topic of childbirth and how her's had gone and what I was planning on doing with mine (this is actually quite common among new moms and pregnant women). She told me about how she had gone naturally and how amazing it was. I had to know more...it sounded great.

Her parents were there and basically took over the conversation from here and told me about the Bradley Method. In my minimal reading of natural childbirth methods, this was by far the one that intrigued me most. From summaries and short abstracts about it, it just made sense. Good health, physical and mental preparation, relaxation and husband involvement...perfect! That's what I want. The conversation continued and I found out that they were local Bradley teachers and were still gaining their accreditation because they had to teach two courses before becoming full affiliates. (Their daughter --my friend-- was actually the one that got them started teaching the courses in our area. When she got pregnant and wanted to do the Bradley Method, she started looking around for teachers. But no one in our area was really teaching this method, so she talked to her parents about it. They, being Bradley parents themselves, decided to look into becoming teachers...and they did!) They were halfway through the 12-week course, but invited us to join anyway, and they would catch us up. We agreed to start coming and I was quite excited for the new journey.

We caught up and finished the course two and a half weeks before I was due. Miriam didn't come quite when I would have liked her here, but she came, nonetheless, and that is what matters. About a month after the class finished, all three mothers had given birth and we all had happy, healthy babies.

Six months later, we were all invited to a reunion. We were excited to go because we loved our class and had become quite close with our classmates over the six weeks we had class with them. The reunion was last Friday and it was so fun. The party lasted three and a half hours and was so fun. We got to share birth stories and see the other couples' cute baby boys.

Supposedly, every childbirth class ends up sharing a common theme throughout their labors (at least my teachers had noticed this with their previous class who all went early -- we were their second class). Our theme was fast labors/births. Good thing, cause I didn't want to be in labor all day. Beth went three weeks early and labored about seven hours. Her baby was almost born at home, but they barely made it to the hospital in time. Lacey's baby came right on his due date and she labored for about eight hours. They had a planned (but unattended) home birth. Everything went well with her, as well. My labor was about seven hours long and we already know that I was neither early, nor on time. I'm glad she's healthy though!

Here's our class and teachers (I realize the quality is horrible, but it's the best we could get under the circumstances)












From left to right: Owen, me, Miriam, Steve, Christian, Lacey, baby Young (they came late and I forgot to ask his name), Valerie, Beth and baby Avenias (his name is Owen -- but I doubt he's named after my Owen)