Learning something every day!

Status: 29 weeks, 3 days

Joel and I went to our first "Prepared Childbirth" class last night. We ended up signing up for a class at a Wellstar Kennestone Hospital instead of at Northside (where we will deliver) because of scheduling, and I was a bit nervous about that. I was worried they would focus a lot on what the hospital itself would do, but so far that seems to be on the back burner. I LOVE our teacher, she is hilarious!

Our class has 7 couples in it with various due dates from late August to late September. After an initial quiet period, we all seemed to relax and it was pretty informal and fun. We get to sit in these awesome gliders (except that they are vinyl and therefore cause me to sweat) and we got to put our feet up on birthing balls! It was nice to relax after 4 days at work. We also came into a darkened room with peaceful music on....I could have fallen asleep right there. I'm looking forward to learning more as the weeks go on (we have 4 more classes).

Last night we covered stages of labor, third trimester physical changes, signs of labor, and when to go to the hospital. I think Joel's biggest lesson was that he doesn't have to run out the door as soon as I tell him we're in labor. I think that really calmed him down a bit. Our instructor encouraged us to stay home as long as possible, and to eat, shower, and rest before going to the hospital. The partners were encouraged to distract us from timing contractions at the very beginning (at least more than an hour), and to not jingle the car keys in our faces (that was my joke) as soon as we mentioned the word contraction.

Overall, it was a fun class...looking forward to next week!