Don't move or you may be paralyzed

For the past three weeks Jared and I have ventured out every tuesday night to the hospital, to sit in a room, with ten other couples (a real variety of creatures), to learn about what they daringly call "a labor of love." Every time I see the class sign posted I think to myself, labor=yikes, love=sweet little baby wrapped up in my arms. The two things rarely mix, so besides it being a play on words, i strongly disagree with the class title. I love my baby girl so much, and I simply can't wait for her to be here, but the more I read and learn about labor (the actual getting the baby out of my body), let me tell you it is NOT something that I would love to do, it's something that I am starting to realize, Oh crap I have to do this. Like it's too late now, she's in there, she's growing, she's daily reminding me that she's running out of room, eventually she's got to come out.

Any of you who know me, know that I don't deal well with needles. According to my father (who lovingly went to doctor's appointments with me until I was 20) this would be the understatement of the century. At my first pre-natal appointment they had to draw blood, just a little tube full, not a big deal, just standard testing. As soon as they told me, I began to sweat and my heart began to race. I walked down the hallway to the room where the blood is taken, sat down in what to me resembles an elementary school desk and began to cry, Jared holding back giggles gripped my hand (he doesn't understand that I'm the one who's suppose to do the squeezing). The nurse just looked at me, she said "Girl, your about to be someone's mamma, it's just a little blood." Easy for her to say, she obviously wasn't afraid of needles. Well last night in our birthing class we began by learning about the epidural, needless to say I turned white, my breathing became short and shallow and Jared leaned over and asked if I was ok. Yes of course, I'm ok, I'm great, I just have to get an 18 gauge needle shoved into my spine, so that I can breathe enough to push a child out of me. Are you kidding me? Obviously, not ok. So I know there is always the option to go natural, and I will be the first to praise those women who are strong enough to do so, however I will also be the first to admit that I'm a wimp, I don't even try to be tough. I don't have it in me to endure pain, and if there is a way to avoid possible pain, especially that of child birth (I hear that's pretty painful), I'm sorry to those of you who this may offend, but I plan on taking it. It just so happens that the way to avoid said pain is to face my crippling fear of needles.

So after an hour or so of talking about needles, anesthesia, possible, side effects of an epidural: itchiness, nausea, convulsions, week long migraines, paralysis, and death, we had a short snack break. :)