1/10/09

Today was such a long day! We had our childbirth marathon class at the hospital. It went all the way from 9-4:30!! It was like information overload though... I can't say I actually remember any of it now that I'm writing about it..

Of course they showed the dreaded birthing video!! I wasn't ever planning on watching one of these...EVER!! The way I see it... I don't know why I need to see EXACTLY what happens!! I mean.. I'm gonna do what I have to do.. no need preparing visually for it!! I was fully expecting to watch the video and decide on keeping this baby in my belly forever so I wouldn't have to go through it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong.. it was pleasant to watch...but it wasn't traumatizing either..

The class started by all of us introducing ourselves..first the pregnant women and then the men. To get the partners involved the teacher had a bunch of index cards with "dirty" pregnancy words. Each guy had to pick one and say it out loud (sort of an ice-breaker to make everyone laugh). She then defined what the words were after each person. I was hoping Pat would get a really funny one.. but he got off easy with cervix... haha.. Nothing too embarrassing..

Anyways..the class continued with her giving us a bunch of information on all of our options when it comes to having the baby and signs of deliver and how to look for them...

At the end of the class we did some breathing exercises. The first thing she made us do was grab a handful of ice chips and squeeze our hand and hold it for a minute. Our men were supposed to ignore us and give no support to the pain. It was just to make us aware of what we do with our bodies when we're in pain... like walking around, flinching, etc..... go figure. It was totally painful though!!!! If thats nothing compared to childbirth I'm in trouble... Well then she showed us different positions that can help us relax while we're in labor and had our husbands help with relaxing techniques. The best one was at the end... she had us lay on the floor on our sides and had the men massage our backs. She was talking about relaxing your muscles (like they do at the end of a yoga class). Then she had us grab a handful of ice again but kept going with the relaxation technique. When she told us to get rid of the ice I didn't even realize it had been 2 1/2 minutes!!! Crazy!! I guess consciously trying to relax actually helps.... Hmmm..we'll see about that when I'm actually in labor....

Well other than the class.. everything is fine. Collin is still moving around a ton. I'm busy getting everything ready for my leave from work on February. My last day will be February 20. That should leave me a few days to rest before the baby comes. Then I'll have 12 weeks off work so I'll only need to go back for a week and a half at the end of the year. I wasn't sure how long to take, but I just can't imagine leaving our baby in daycare at 6 or 8 weeks. At least when I have to go back for the last week Pat will be finished with school, and then I'll be off for the summer. I'm excited that I'll be lucky enough to get to spend all that time with Collin when he comes! :)