“The cute baby at the top of the mountain” Our first Prenatal class

Mount Yotei aka Ezo Fuji
Originally uploaded by kuckibaboo.

We attended our first Prenatal class on March 8th. It was held at our hospital and Sean, Jess and myself were both excited and a wee bit nervous. We got there right on time which means we were late by Japanese standards. Chairs were pulled out for us and we got settled amongst the other couples. Then the nurse made an apology on our behalf to the rest of the group because the foreigners needed to be whispering in the back for the sake of translation. How kind.

Our doctor conducted a lecture for about the first hour on what to expect with the onset of labor, what the hospital’s procedures and policies are for certain situations (fetal stress, induction etc) and the differences between parenting styles for mothers and fathers. Most of the information was pretty basic but it was really nice to see that so much emphasis was being put on the importance of the father as an active member in the delivery, care and raising of the child. We’ve heard from many folks that have had children here that the dad is basically a non-participant in any aspect of the pregnancy and delivery. Now would probably be a good time to mention that I don’t have the option for a pain free delivery…no drugs…whatsoever. It’s standard for Tokachi (our region) and most of the rest of Japan unless you are in a big city like Tokyo or Kyoto where you have access to International hospitals. A lot of emphasis is put on relaxation and breathing techniques to get the laboring mom through the delivery. So all the while during the lecture we’re being reminded about the importance of staying focused on the breathing and getting through the pain because we’ll get to meet our cute baby that is waiting at the top of the mountain for us! The “cuteness culture” even prevails in the labor and delivery room! It’s hard to decide if the no drug policy is progressive or not. I think in many cases in the west drugs are given too readily but conversely I think there are likely many cases here when drugs should be given and are not. Let’s just hope I’m not proof of the later. Further on the topic of progression we found out that our hospital is the best maternity hospital on Hokkaido. When compared to other hospitals here or down south it appears to be light years ahead of the rest of Japan in the progressive thinking department. We couldn’t be happier to be living 2.5 blocks away from this place!

For the last half of the class we watched a very informative video. They actually showed a woman going thru the labor and birth process from the onset of labor at home right thru to the delivery of the baby. The editing was totally crappy but this video was made by our hospital and showed the actual procedures, rooms and staff that we would be dealing with which was greatly comforting. I’m all about eliminating the “unknowns” and this video struck a great deal of them off my list. Except for the compulsory enema, I still don’t know what that is like but I will soon enough!

So the 3 of us left feeling pretty good about climbing the mountain. Here’s hoping it’s more like Fuji than Everest!