positions breathing and pain

Last night saw our second NCT class...

Each couple had to write down their names, their due date and something they liked doing together...

...I had gone into the toilet before joining the group so James wrote the stuff down for us ;o)

We were the first couple to say anything and James had wrote down that we liked watching cookery tv shows (although we dont do any of the cooking we just like watching them).

LOL all of the other couples had put down eating out and socialising (so at least we were different ;o)).

The lady taking the class then  put down on the floor a whole load of cards showing different positions to be in during labour (I have to admit some of them were really strange).

Last week we were told to bring some cushions with us so that we could practice some of these, so we chose three positions that involved him holding me which seemed to work.

We then moved on to breathing techniques which essentially involved breathing in and exhaling very slowly during the contractions, and the different ways to visualise them...

...the way I am going to visualise is the coffee caffetier (you breath in and pull the plunger up and when you breath out you push it back down again) this worked fr better for me than imagining colours or feathers.

Next was pain relief - we had to split into groups of two couples and were given four sheets of paper each with a different method of pain relief on, and had to write down a maximum of four things (good or bad) that you knew about that method...

...I heard a few not very nice stories about pethidine but as they say everybody is different...

We then finished off with relaxation techniques and that involved James rubbing my back while I breathed through the contractions (I did enjoy the back rubbing I must say).

We were told to practice these techniques ;o)