Labor Simulation?

Mo reminded me of a funny story from our first childbirth class.

Our teacher Betsy had all of us (moms and partners) hold an ice cube for a minute. Then she asked us, in our heads, to rank the pain from 1 (not painful) to 10 (extremely painful). We had to get the number in our heads before telling each other so we wouldn't influence each other with our responses.


But no worries. Because I knew what the outcome of this was going to be ...


Can you guess? 


Katie: 2. Mo: 7. 


Mo points out that this was an unfair advantage since he has a particular aversion to cold and I have a particular tolerance for it. But still. I had to laugh and say, 'Well, I guess it's a good thing that I'm the one giving birth!'


We did it two more times, one time focusing our attention on an object, and another time focusing on sounds, to see if those kinds of diversions were helpful us to us in tolerating pain. It didn't make a big difference for either one of us, particularly.


But the really funny part comes in when Mo went on to tell this story to our friend Mia this week, explaining that this was an exercise that simulates what labor feels like.

Thank goodness for Mia who has not been through labor herself but still knew enough to look at him and emphatically let him know that, in fact, no, holding an ice cube for one minute is NOTHING like going through labor.


Again, I repeat, I think we have the proper partner going through the physical part of this process in our case, though I have to say that I've always thought that I was a bit of a wimp when it comes to pain. Thank goodness for Mo who's proving to me that I'm not as bad as I thought! :)