Here we are about to walk in...
to the hospital where I will deliver our sweet baby girl! We had our all day childbirth class last Saturday and I am not kidding, we found it to be amazing. Yes, some of the videos were kind of graphic, but other than that....I would suggest that everyone take it. I am kicking myself for not getting at least a few pictures. We took the class with our neighbors, Leslie and Jim, who are expecting in July. There were 6 couples in the class altogether. Most were due in May. I had seen all of them before at the Shaw center actually. We found out that one of the soon to be new dads is a new Dr. in town at our family medicine practice. His wife is due just two weeks before us. Y'all I just loved it. Ok, let me tell you about it.
The teacher of the class is a RN in mother/baby and also lives in our neighborhood. She is fantastic and I can only hope that she will be there to take care of us. I also found out that she is a Moms on Call consultant and I will be calling her if I ever feel that I need too. I've heard great things about Moms on Call through the Blog World. Plus, I LOVED all my packets and checklists!!
The first half of the day was all about labor and delivery. She even gave us a birth plan that was suitable to use at Archbold, so the nurses and Drs won't think you're crazy. I am a hard core researcher and pretty much knew all of these things that we learned about. However, I loved reviewing them and learning about them in greater detail...especially from a nurse. I also liked learning about the different types of labor that I could have based on her position...and how to move if she is posterior...VERY INFORMATIVE! Matt loved this part because he doesn't like to read, and kept saying, "I'm learning so much!" :) She gave the dads lots of jobs to focus on...from timing contractions before coming to the hospital, to learning breathing techniques to do during labor. She also gave them a heads up on things that would go on during delivery. We also learned about pain management and epidurals.
Then we toured the birthing suites and post-partum rooms. They are really nice for us living in such a small town. The first thing that we both noticed were the plantation shutters in all the rooms...haha! It was fun to peek into the nursery and also the waiting room and picture our family members waiting!
The hospital provided us lunch....grilled chicken salad and snickers cheesecake. I wasn't planning on eating, but it was actually good!
After lunch was my favorite part. We talked all about hospital survival kits for before and then after delivery. We went over what to pack and what our hospital would provide. We learned about postpartum....what to expect and how to care for yourself and baby. She even went over the basics, changing diapers, swaddling, giving your baby a bath, how many wet diapers you should look for for the first week or so to make sure your baby is eating enough. *Matt got to demonstrate swaddling a baby and he did such a good job! I am saddest of all that I don't have a picture of him doing that. We spent a long time on breastfeeding, which is why I really wanted to go to this because she is known as an expert. I feel so much better after this class! She truly didn't leave anything out. I needed her and this class! She also gave us some tips on her favorite baby necessities...ones that she swears work the best! We talked about a sleep schedules and learned some soothing techniques from Happiest Baby on the Block.
I'm sure I'm leaving things out, but we just enjoyed this class so much!!! Hopefully the next time we'll be up at Archbold is when we're having our little bit. :)
