The Ol' Heave Ho

Like the old saying goes. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Well, I found out last night that when the going gets tough the tough should give it the ol' heave ho.

No, I don't mean give up on life...I'm talking about breathing techniques for labour.

Last night Shiela and I went to our second pre-natal class to learn all about what to expect and we learned a few breathing techniques. The last one they taught us was the hee-ho. Supposedly this is a technique used in England or somewhere and it is suppose to work really well. Instead of just blowing out air like blowing out candles, you instead breathe out in a hee - ho method. When it gets intense you can increase it to hee-hee-ho or if it get's really bad you can use hee-hee-hee ho. Ok, now that you are all hyperventilating trying to figure out how this breathing works lets move on.

These pre-natal classes are actually pretty good. I'm sure the teacher thinks I hate it because I'm yawning a lot but that's just because I'm tired. The info they give you is pretty useful and I will definately be more prepared going into the delivery room. As I mentioned to Shiela last night, I don't think I fully understood before just how long and hard this whole delivery process is (go ahead, make fun of all men and how we don't understand the pain, etc. etc.) I mean, I've heard women say they were in labour for 16 hours, blah, blah, blah and I just figured they were in the hospital waiting for the baby to be born. I knew the birthing part was painful but apparently there is a lot more going on then just when the baby gets pushed out.

So now that all the women reading this are typing up hate mail to me and yelling to their husbands that they are never again going to hang out with Sheldon and Shiela because Sheldon's so insensitive, I'll help you husbands out by giving you my

Top 5 Questions Not to Ask At Pre-Natal Classes (learned from experience):

5) What type of pain medication is there for the husband?

4) Is it ok to pre-record me saying encouraging words on a tape recorder so I can just play the tape for her when I'm off watching TV in the visitors lounge?

3) How long do I rub her back before we switch positions and she massages my shoulders?

2) Is it ok to reassure my wife by saying "That wasn't so bad now was it?" after each contraction?

1) What should I tell my wife when I feel that she is over exagerrating on the pain?

Needless to say all the women in our pre-natal class love their husbands that much more after having me in their class.