Stephen and I have started taking a 4 week prenatal class at the Utah Valley Regional Hospital. This last Monday was our second class, there are only four classes once a week. This last time they had us watch a birthing video. One word: AAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Well I guess that's not really a word) I don't do well with blood and stuff, and apparently Stephen doesn't either because his eyes started watering, NOT because he was getting emotional but because he thought he was going to gag. THEN... the baby appeared and you kind of forget what it is your looking at and just focus on the baby's head and then its' body. Even Stephen's watery eyes transformed into tears of joy as he started imagining himself as that future father holding the baby newborn boy. We watched about 5 different births; from the woman with pre-eclampsia to a c-section to the woman who did it without the epidural. Yes, we saw it all. After the video they took us on a tour of the hospital. The room where the baby would be delivered, the nursery, and our room that we would stay in after he comes. It was all so surreal to believe what we will be experiencing soon. Not soon enough and yet, "aghhhh" when he does come. That's all.
P.S. I fibbed a bit on the pregnancy ticker. My original due date was August 10th, but when we had our ultrasound the lady said he was further along, or further developed and said there was a good possibility of him being born about 10 days early. BUT it wasn't officially official, she just said there was a good chance. So I started telling people that asked that my due date was August 1st. Wishful thinking. Maybe if I believe it, it will happen.
4 comments:
Oh, man. I remember our tour of the hospital. One of the girls in our baby class cried through the entire tour, as well as through several of the labor exercises. During one, we had to clip a clothespin onto our ears and try breathing exercises while ignoring the pain (which, I might add, was minimal and NOTHING like labor). She cried through THAT. She also went into labor the same day as a friend of mine, and my friend reported that despite her textbook-perfect epidural, she screamed the entire way through labor and delivery. YIKES.
Tell Stephen that Karl and I nearly ran out of the room during those nasty labor videos (WHY can't they film someone attractive? If we have to see them naked, couldn't they at least be worth looking at? And WHY would ANYONE go through a drug-free delivery after watching that video?!?) but we were much better during our own daughter's birth. It's less traumatic when it's your own kid. And if Stephen is really bothered, there'll be a lot of open space next to your head where he can hang out. Trust me--Karl was much more helpful sitting on the couch or next to my bed than he was holding my foot and barking instructions at me. :) Ahhh. Good times.
My last suggestion--watch "A Baby Story" on TLC if you need preparation. I found those shows to be enormously helpful and less fraught with nudity. And the triumphant music that greets the arrival of each baby NEVER fails to make me cry!!!
Wow. You are brave to assume your due date is earlier. I just convinced myself that I would go overdue so I wouldn't be disappointed if my due date came and went.
Nate didn't care about the dress picture. We were just laughing because Pres does not look like a girl AT ALL to us. I thought if we put a dress on him he might look like a girl but I just can't see it. He looks all boy to me. A little boy in a dress that is.
Oh and I never went to any of the classes. By the time I thought to sign up for it they were all full. I don't think it mattered too much for me because I was planning on getting an epidural from the beginning. I am so not into pain!
I really liked the classes. It gives you a nice heads up. And since I have Braxton-Hicks contractions nearly every hour every day (though usually they aren't uncomfortable), I practice the breathing stuff. We'll see if it works in real life.
My best advice is to be prepared for anything and just embrace it when it comes. Your birth experience will be unique to you, not like anyone else's. The thing that I told myself over and over is that giving birth, however difficult, is limited to a discreet period of time, usually 24 hours. And, I told myself, I can do anything for 24 hours. Somehow, that made me less fearful and more optimistic. (Of course, I did have recurrent dreams about waking up and finding that I had given birth in my sleep, with the baby dozing peacefully at the foot of the bed. What a nice fantasy!)
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