Bradley Method Class Reunion...sort of!

Before O was born, J and I talked about the possibilities related to prenatal classes in and around Saskatoon. The only option that we knew about at the time was the class in the Saskatoon Health Region, which makes room for several pregnant couples, to talk about pregnancy and child birth, or should I say, the medicalization of child birth. Yea, needless to say, J and I were not interested at all. Upon talking with our midwife, we were presented with a couple other options: hypnobirthing and the bradley method. In short, hypnobirthing is a sort of self-induced hypnosis method for the women, while the Bradley Method is all about Natural Childbirth, but has a huge, "coach" component to it. The latter interested me because I always knew I would be invested in fatherhood from the very moment the stick had the plus sign on it. Being the geek that I am, I delved into the research, and even read the book "Husband-Coached Childbirth", by Robert Bradley, from cover-to-cover. The book does a great job of explaining the method, but what was the most amazing experience I have had, next to the birth of my son, was taking part in the classes in Saskatoon. Our instructor, and our other classmates, became our friends, and we are forever greatful to CS for taking the time each week, for ten weeks, to prepare us for the final part of our journey.

On that note, last night J and I opened our house up to these friends we've made for a bit of a refresher on Dr. Bradley's methods. In our class in 2010, there were 9 couples, of those 5 of us are expecting children again, 3 in December, 1 in January and 1 in March! CS told us that in all her years, she has never had this many from the same class, expecting again, so close in age, again. We shared food, experiences and got to see all our children play together last night. CS gave us the refresher she thought we needed, and most of us think that we are ready to take on birth number two! If you ever get the opportunity, take some time to learn about natural childbirth, and research some alternatives to traditional, hospital prenatal classes. I am confident that if you take part in a Bradley Method class, you will have a new appreciation for yourself, your partner, and your child.

Trust birth,
B