"Birth and You"... Say What?!

My husband and I took a birth class this weekend at SwedishAmerican Hospital, and wow what a class it was! It was taught by Cindy Boyle, a nurse with nearly two decades of experience in both hospitals and doctor's offices, including mine. What a patient soul she is. Not only was the class an all day affair (as in 9-5!), but she was teaching 9 scared-out-of-their-minds couples, including Aaron and I (more so me than Aaron, I think). I wish I could say after taking the class that I feel better, but while I feel extremely well informed, I kind of now feel a bit overwhelmed.

Let me start off by giving you all a little bit of background on my own pregnancy story. Aaron and I were blessed to find out about our little bundle of joy way back in January. I'll be honest, the baby was a surprise, but certainly a welcome one. Nothing was more exciting than going to our 8 week ultra sound and seeing the little bean-sized being, forming inside me. Ever since our doctor compared the baby to the size of a lima bean, the baby has affectionately been dubbed, "the bean"! I'll never forget shouting in the room that day that "I'm not crazy! I really am pregnant!" because three positive pregnancy tests just didn't have me convinced, haha! Fast forward to 21 weeks and we found out our little bean is boy! My husband and I have decided we like the name Jack, so Jack he shall be (or in my grandma's case, he'll be "little Jack bean", haha!).I'm now a whopping 32 weeks pregnant! I've loved almost every minute of my pregnancy. I've been blessed to have a relatively easy experience with virtually no morning sickness and no complications. I'm just hungry and tired all the time (not a good thing when your newscast is the last thing you do in a day!).

Okay, back to birth class!

The class started off with a bit of a female anatomy lesson. Man, they don't teach you this stuff in high school health 101! I learned so much about the beauty of the human body and what it's capable of. I also learned about all the weird stuff that comes along with pregnancy, and those first signs of labor. I feel like in pregnancy you know what to expect as you go along trimester by trimester, but I simply can't wrap my brain around this baby leaving my body, and it's method of doing so. Whatever happened to the stork?! There's so much to think about just in the labor process alone: do I want pain medicine? If so, do I want a narcotic or epidural? do I want to just grin and bear it since the latter two options can often make the labor process go slower (which I learned in my birth class, who knew?!)? My instructor was very fair while explaining all the options, not giving her opinion, just the facts of each method. She also gave great pain management advice, including the goofy breathing techniques. Honestly, I'm not sure what I want to do. I think I want to hold off taking any pain drugs for as long as possible, but I'm also not a martyr to pain. So ladies, let's be real here, how miserable were you if you opted out of the pain med department? And if you chose to go with an epidural, did it slow things down to a glacial pace? I know everyone is different, but hearing what worked best for other people brings me comfort for some reason.

Later on, we got to tour the labor and delivery wing at the hospital which was awesome. I liked seeing where I'll be holed up for hours on end. I was also impressed with all the amenities they provide like the bathtub with jets and the exercise ball. Clearly we modern mamas have it good! Did you know Swedes delivered about 2500 babies last year? That's more than any other hospital in town! I promise that's not me plugging them because I've been told to, I was just honestly impressed by that statistic! But with that stat comes the reality of many hustling and bustling nurses and doctors barreling down the hallways. I'm a rather modest person (and listen, I know that goes out the window during the labor process), but did anyone out there feel like their privacy was ever being interrupted without just cause?

At the end of the class, the 18 of us got a quick video on a few child-rearing basics. They included bathing, diapering, and sleeping. It's that section that left me feeling the most overwhelmed. I quickly realized how little I know about what to do with such a tiny little human! Diapering? Well I've changed a few... when I was a 13 year old babysitting in my church nursery! Bathing? Nope, never bathed a baby... but I imagine newborns don't like it. And does anyone else feel like the whole "baby sleeps on tummy vs. baby sleeps on back" is a lose-lose situation? In theory, they could die in either position! That's terrifying! And don't worry, I'll be going with the recommended baby-on-back method since that's what's popular with docs right now, but i'm just saying, not long ago and the other position was recommended.

Overall, I feel like I learned a lot, but I also feel like there's not enough time in the day to learn all I need to learn before birthing this baby boy.

This is my first blog posting and I'd love feedback on it and all those I post in the future. I know I won't see eye to eye with everyone all the time, that's the beauty of being different, I just ask that everyone remains respectful in their posts and comments.