Childbirth Classes

We had our first childbirth education class last night at St. John's, where we'll be delivering Kyra. We'll have one more class next week, and then in December we go to a Breastfeeding class and Baby Care Basics class. We should be experts after that, right? Leading up to last night's class, I was wondering if it would scare me more for the delivery, or (hopefully) leave me feeling a bit more prepared. It was a mix of both throughout the 3 hour class, but overall Geoff and I both left feeling more prepared. Ironically I think I'm less concerned with the actual pain of delivery (send the epidural and pain meds my way, please!), but am more nervous about having the stamina to endure the entire delivery process if it turns out to be a lengthy delivery.

We were shown a large diagram (similar to the one above, but with notation on each of the organs), which compared the female anatomy before pregnancy to a woman carrying a full-term baby. I've seen similar images already, but last night's diagram made it clear why I'm running for the bathroom more frequently now and don't seem to have room to eat large meals anymore. The weight of the baby rests entirely on top of my bladder and compresses it, and yet we're told to drink 8-12 glasses of water/fluids per day! Us poor women just don't get left with much room in there! My uterus is apparently the size of a soccer ball now, and will continue to grow to a watermelon size!

Last weekend, Grandma Carol and Grandpa Phil came up to help Geoff and I around the house. They took a ton of stuff to Goodwill, helped Geoff with a plumbing problem under our sink, sanded Kyra's dresser to prep it for painting, cleared out our patio, and the list goes on and on! Amazingly, they're still willing to help and are coming back up on Monday to continue clearing the nursery and get started on painting! We picked out the paint colors last week, so I'm excited to see the room start to really take shape! I just feel guilty that I can't be helping more with all the manual labor. I wouldn't say that I'm a control freak necessarily, but it's hard for me to be so removed from this process. But luckily we have some very generous and willing helpers in our family! In our class last night, one of the husbands was trying to convince all the couples in the room that his wife was crazy for making him paint various rooms in the house, assemble the crib, and lay down tile flooring. He just couldn't seem to understand that his wife is nesting and acting completely normal (normal for a pregnant woman). He was convinced that his wife should be doing all the work! Seriously! I'm very happy to be married to my wonderful husband who, although I suppose possibly could think I'm crazy at times, let's me think I'm completely normal, volunteers to help out, and doesn't try to convince the world that I'm nuts just for wanting my house set up before I have a baby.

There's still tons to be done, and we just don't seem to have the room to efficiently move everything around. But we're making it work. It's a bit of a puzzle right now, in terms of where to move things, but it'll all work out in the end. I don't think we'll be having any dinner guests anytime soon though!