Good times at the epidural class

Well, we went to our first childbirth class last week - the very exciting epidural class. Seeing as it was our first class dealing with the birth of our child I have to admit, we (I) was a little nervous. I had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn't expect what ended up happening.

As required by federal statute or at least by the hospital's lawyers, every woman who wants to get an epidural (an injection to make the pain of labor a little more managable) must go to a class that explains what an epidural is and how it works. Since most sane women are looking for any opportunity to cut down on the pain of childbirth (who wouldn't - you try going to the bathroom and shooting out a crying basketball), this class is pretty popular. In our class, there were about 100 people packed into a converted trailer. The temperature in the room was somewhere slightly lower than the surface of the sun.

The doctor who led the class was retired and had been delivering babies since the 1950's when they used a toilet plunger and a yoke of oxen. This guy defined the word "old school". He had probably delivered half the state of Pennsylvania, had seen it all and nothing really fazed him. He started off by saying that we would watch a wonderful video about anethesia. He then, with a sigh of annoyance, said that the video wasn't graphic but still some people (4 in the last year) had passed out, or "crashed" as he put it, watching the video. So if we felt funny, we should close our eyes and it would go away.

So the video starts and I felt like I was watching an old reel to reel movie back in elementary school. The couple who was featured in the movie (and I think were given every type of anethesia possible to show us what happens - I can't see how that baby turned out normal) were straight out of the 80's. If they they given the dad sport goggles, short shorts and knee-high tube socks, he could have played for the Lakers in the late 70's. It was fantastic.

So about the time the doctor was putting a catheter into the back of the expectant mother and I had made my 300th sarcastic comment to Missy, we heard what sounded like snoring. A guy in front of us was slumped over on his wife's shoulder. I thought he was sleeping and was about to make sarcastic comment #301 when the people around him started standing up and waving for the doctor. Then all of a sudden, the guy started seizing.

The doctor, of course, didn't miss a beat. He turned on the lights and then, knowing what was most important, rushed right past the convulsing father-to-be and turned the movie off. By the time he got to the guy, he had stopped seizing but was a color that I had never seen in a human being before-a cauliflower maybe-but not a human. He insisted that he was fine. The doctor turned to the very anxious wife and asked how she was doing. She said something incoherent and then SHE went down. Again, the doctor sprung to action. He got her on the ground and had cauliflower man keep her feet elevated. He then yelled in her face, "Hey, can you hear me?". After yelling this about 10 times, she finally came to. He asked for someone to call for an ambulance. Once she was coherent (and still lying on the floor) and the ambulance was called, the doctor said, "Well, while we're waiting...." and then went up to the front of room and proceeded to talk about different types of anethesia. Most people would stay with an expectant mother and her ghostly husband to make sure nothing else happened but this guy had to get through his material by 8:00! Priorities, people! At one point, he asked for a show of hands of how many first time mothers there were in the room. And then, I guess because he couldn't see her hand because she was on the floor, walked over to see the faint woman and asked, "How about you, are you a first time mom?" After she weakly raised her hand, he acknowledged her contribution to the survey and said, "Yes, I kind of thought you were."

Once the ambulance came (which took a surprisingly long time considering we were actually taking the class at the hospital) and wheeled out the fragile couple (to which we applauded encouragingly), the remainder of the class was relatively uneventful. The doctor did go over many things that could go wrong during an epidural which did not do much to calm the nerves of many first timers like us. He would flipantly (and even with a hint of annoyance) say things like, "Well, sometimes we put too much anethesia into the spinal space and then the mother loses consciousness. Then we have to put her on a gurney and it's kind of a pain." He would throw around terms like "collapsing" and "seizures" which would leave us looking at each other saying, "Did he just say there could be a seizure?" By the time we turned our attention back to him, he was talking about a needle or something.

Surprisingly, we left there feeling ok about the whole process but I think we were most relieved that this doctor was now retired and that we wouldn't be seeing a toilet plunger or yoke of oxen anytime soon.