30 weeks and more birthing class

This is the two of us at 30 weeks! (I'm sparing you the bare belly shots from here on out... they're just a bit too intense for my otherwise G-rated blog haha). I can tell she's starting to get really big, as the last few days she has had some really intense but cool wiggling spurts. At her most active times of day, you can see her move through my shirt with minimal effort (much to my students' utter horror). But daddy is definitely enjoying getting his chance to feel (and see!) her move so often these days.

My classroom has been ridiculously hot this past week -- kind of like the dorms at NIU -- you have no way of controlling it or turning it off. As a result, I've been sweating like a pig and drinking lots of water. This, of course, makes getting to the bathroom and back in the 3 minutes between classes a little bit of a challenge, but I don't think the students mind that we start class a couple of minutes late on occassion. Luckily, Molly hooked me up with a nice amount of warm weather maternity clothing in addition to the winter wear, so I just dress for May weather.

We had our 3rd birthing class yesterday. Last week's class was a bit intense, as it covered medical interventions (such as C-sections) and medical pain management and I was the only woman there that had decided not to go with an all natural birth. I think my planned epidural put a bit of a bad taste in our instructor's mouth. She asked me to share my reasoning behind it before we watched a movie about it, and then once the movie was over and I had learned all of the facts about epidurals, she asked me my opinion again - perhaps assuming somehow my opinion had changed. It's not that I'm trying to be selfish or that I haven't thought about my baby at all, but I think the benefits of a more relaxed and calm labor outweigh the slim possibilities that there will be minor and temporary side effects on our baby (and those possibilities go down even more when the epidural is used early enough). I am also aware that complications might arise and an epidural may not be an option that day, but that best we can do is go in with a plan.

Yesterday's class, however, was much brighter. We learned the natural ways to cope with the pain of labor, including different helpful positions to help the baby move where she needs to move, breathing techiniques, massage techniques, etc. I thought it was going to be a bit dopey, but it wasn't at all. We experimented with a variety of environmental changes (music, lighting, etc.) and compared our breathing rate and relaxation in different circumstances. I was really surprised how much of a difference music in particular had on my ability to breath more slowly. Travis, however, made the biggest difference in the success of each fake contraction. They showed the coaches different areas that will be helpful to massage during contractions and how to use different ones with different laboring positions. In the very end they took our coaches away and made us try a breathing cycle without them, and I was amazed by how lost I was without Travis there with me. Now we just have to convince our little one to start coming at a time when he is not in the boonies somewhere on a live shot so I don't have to see what the real ones are like by myself. :)

We weren't totally serious the whole time, of course, as Travis got some good inappropriate jokes in during our "quiet whispering" time during one contraction, which lead to childish giggling. She also opened class by asking the coaches to think of one thing that would be beneficial to say to us when we were in labor, which is kind of an awkward and weird question to be put on the spot with. After a series of responses that got an "actually that's not going to be very beneficial or appreciated on that day" answer from the instructor, we took to coming up with the most ridiculous answers we could come up with in our little corner of the room, including "my feet hurt, I feel like I've been standing forever" and "hey when we get home can you make some spaghetti? I'm really in the mood for spaghetti." I was also warned that I need to tone up my thighs a bit, since one birthing position that I am guaranteed to have to use (apparently) made my legs ache. She suggested some light activities, like the Wii fit. This gave me a chance to go on my diatribe about why I have boycotted the Wii Fit for the duration of my pregnancy due to its inability to recognize "pregnant" as an option for gaining 2 pounds in one week, which got a good chuckle from the class. So no worries all, our immaturity has remained intact throughout the course of this class.

Tomorrow we meet with Dr Maurus for our first seventh month check-up!