11.06.2010

First Childbirthing Class

Thursday night hubby and I attended our first childbirthing class at the hospital.

There's 2 other sets of people in our class - another married couple, expecting twins in December, who looked to be about the same age as hubby and I and then there was a slightly younger looking girl, expecting a boy in January, who was there with her mom.

It was interesting and not quite what I was expecting, based off what you see in movies!

http://svmomblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/06/30/birthclass.gifThe RN that taught this session went through a Powerpoint with us and gave us a bag of goodies (which I have yet to go through as hubby keeps leaving it in the car) as well as a pretty informative book/guide that the hospital put out. We went over a few relaxation and early-labor breathing exercises. We also saw pictures of the Labor and Delivery ward upstairs, explaining how the whole process goes and she showed us some of the devices and such that they use to monitor stuff such as that funky contraction monitor belt I mentioned they had me wear when we were there last week getting checked out after the accident.

We got done a bit early but I felt it was informative - I learned some stuff I didn't know and WOW! She passed around a palette that had circles that showed the different sizes your cervix gets as it dilated - 10cm (which is when they say you can start pushing baby out) is HUGE! I can't even fathom that stretching out that big! Almost kind of scary (and painful) to think about!

They also made hubby and the other soon-to-be daddy try on the pregnant suit and waddle around it for a minute! Hubby claimed it "wasn't that bad" as he's used to lifting and carrying packages at UPS - whatever, having the extra weight on you is only part of it, try dealing with all the hormones and the soreness, etc on a daily basis! lol...

We have 2 more of these childbirthing classes which are this Thursday and the next so we'll be done by Thanksgiving, and then I have a breastfeeding class I'm taking on Monday the 15th, which is also the same day as our next doctor's appointment. We have a newborn care class we're taking also, but that's not until January.

We're going to try and breastfeed if we can and pump a little bit as well. Looking over the price of formula - it's expensive! So we figure if we can do it, it'll save us a bit in the long run and I'd like to pump some as well as I'm not a fan of breastfeeding in public not to mention it'd be nice for hubby to be able to feed Jay at times and then if he's with grandma well, I can send a bottle or 2 of the pumped stuff when she's babysitting so he doesn't have to go hungry. I'm thinking we'll probably breastfeed til about 6 months or so, as that sounds like a good age to wean them off, especially since they can start eating the baby food by then.

I have nothing against those that choose not to - to be honest, I was originally thinking of just doing formula until I realized how expensive that can be. I was formula fed, as was my sister and my cousin that lives near us and while "they" claim it's better to breastfeed than formula feed, we all turned out pretty fine.

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