I had a great class this weekend. I was teaching a "weekender" class, which means a class that starts on Friday night with 3 hours and then goes all day Saturday for 9 hours - you cram an entire Lamaze series in to one weekend. This kind of class is increasingly popular with expectant couples today....
I had a *fantastic* class. The people in a weekend class really make or break it - it can be a really intensive, fun day or it can be a total soul drain....like pulling teeth for 9 hours straight!
My class this weekend was awesome. I had 7 couples, all married - which, well, makes a HUGE difference. They were educated, interested, and just really nice people. They were all happy to be pregnant and eagerly expecting the birth of their babies. I enjoyed teaching them so much.
At the end of the class several of them came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the class [which is not unusual], but one in particular gave me perhaps the best compliment I've ever gotten. The dad was a military man of almost 20 years and he came up and said to me "Kelly, you've been in the military. You know how it can be. The thing I can't stand the most is to come to a meeting and have someone waste my time. You haven't wasted ONE SECOND of my time today, and I appreciate that. This was a great class. It was much better than we expected and we learned so much. Thank you." Cool. :) That's what makes it all worth it.
I'm worried about the future of childbirth in our country, and the future of childbirth education. This "up and coming" generation, the one they are calling "Generation Y" now, grew up with technology and they are very technologically oriented. Many of the younger people in my classes cannot envision giving birth *without* technology - they want the machines. Some of them want a Cesarean. The idea of working with their bodies and allowing birth to happen naturally is foreign to many of them. And thus the Cesarean rate in the US continues to spiral up and out of control. We are not far from the day when it will be a minority of mothers who deliver vaginally I fear.
In response, the hospital I work for has decided to change our childbirth classes dramatically. We will be doing "Powerpoint Presentations" instead of the traditional class. This is specifically designed to appeal to "Generation Y". I don't know if it will work. Sitting for 12 hours staring at a PowerPoint projection doesn't sound fun to me. And much [all?] will be lost as far as the human element of the class. One of the benefits of a childbirth class is that you can meet other people who are going through exactly the same thing you are going through and who totally understand. It also provides a chance for the mother and father to connect and take time to really anticipate the birth and reflect on the pregnancy and their desires for their birth and their newborn. It is a bonding rite of passage in many ways. I think this will be lost with a PowerPoint presentation.
In addition, my employer is moving to "web based learning" for childbirth education - they are bringing on line a web page where the expectant parent can just "do" the whole childbirth class on their computer from home.
In my opinion, you are better off just reading a book at that point - it will cost a lot less money.
So, it is a hard time for me right now trying to decide whether to continue with childbirth education [especially at the hospital where I work], or whether to move on to other opportunities.
But times like today, when I have really connected with a class and when I really KNOW I've made a difference for them and for their babies... those are the times that remind me WHY I got in to this business to start with.
Before I begin every single class I teach, I go to the Lord and I pray this prayer: "Dear God, please let me teach this class well. Please let me speak to these couples the words YOU want them to hear, let me teach them what you feel they need to know. Help me to help them to become the very best parents they can possibly be, and help me to help them to grow closer to you in any way that I can."
I am honored to say that I feel the Lord does use me in this way to reach new families. What I do is a ministry for me - it is something I do for love of the Lord and love of the new families I have the fortune of teaching. My husband and I were adding it up today, and in my 8 years of teaching Lamaze, I have taught somewhere between 700 and 1,000 couples. That is a lot of families that I have been privileged to touch - and I hope and pray that in some way their lives together as a family have been improved by meeting me, that their little babies have been blessed by what I shared with the parents.
As long as I feel that I am still touching people - still instilling in them awe for their newborns, helping them to understand the joy & privilege of parenthood, and helping them to grow into what God wants them to be - I will keep teaching Lamaze.
The day it becomes just a job is the day I quit and move on to something else.
And may I never waste a single second of their time. :)
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