Our First Class

So we had our first Childbirth Preparation Class on Wednesday. It was good. There were five other couples, well one mother/daughter team (the poor girl keeps scaring herself to death by watching A Baby Story; the instructor told her to stop watching it; she did however recommend the movie Baby Momma - has anyone seen it? I loved Amy Poehler on SNL, not so into Parks & Recreation), and the rest were married couples. I would say they all seemed to be about our age, but I'm not very good with ages. One couple is due a few days after us, the rest are due in Jan. I have a feeling one or two may not make it to the last class (on Dec. 30th). All of them know what gender their baby is.

Two of the couples in the group are Navy couples. The instructor mentioned that a lot of Navy couples actually plan their babies around when they will be in Newport because I guess a lot of the military facilities in other places are really not the greatest, but the Birthing Center in Newport is very nice. She also said you can have the baby in the room with you 24/7 if you want (which was one of the things I was wondering about), and if you need a break then they just bring the baby to the nursing station where there is always someone there if they need to be held. There is no big nursery with lots of screaming babies.

She went over how to tell the difference between true labor and false labor, what to do if your water breaks, stuff like that. Next week will be more about the breathing. She actually has a Master's in anthropology, focusing on women's studies and particularly the reproductive years, something like that. She wants to become a doula once her kids get a little older. She is currently a lactation consultant, so she talked a bit about breastfeeding myths (like you can't eat spicy food or drink any alcohol). She said if you want to have the occasional drink the best time is while you're breastfeeding because then by the next time you breastfeed, the alcohol will have metabolized. She said she used to love to go to Tito's (a local Mexican restaurant) and sit in the booth with her glass of sangria while she was breastfeeding the baby. She also said in Ireland they have Guinness right on the nurses' cart for the mothers to have after they deliver if they want.

Next week we have the one-time breastfeeding class Tues. evening, the next Childbirth class Wed. evening and the next appointment with the CNM Thur. afternoon.