From the moment I saw the image above in Denver Valentine's Day weekend, I have been both looking forward to, and fearing what we did this past Saturday. Emily and I took our birthing class. Basically we went to the hospital at 9 am, watched some videos, learned how to breathe, watched some more videos, and 7 hours later, we were ready to give birth! Well, according to the lovely nurse, Peggy who taught our class, we are ready.I'll take her word for it, she's a professional.
For those of you reading this blog who have not gone thru this experience, I have to say, it is worth it. I learned a lot and feel pretty confident about how Emily and I are going to do when this baby is ready to come out. That being said, there are some things that go down in these classes that are, shall we say, a bit jarring. First, we did watch some actual birth videos. Yes, we saw EVERYTHING! While this is the biggest miracle that can ever happen, it is not pretty to watch complete strangers experience this miracle in surround sound. If you have a weak stomach, eat a light breakfast. Also, most of the husbands in the room were like me. We came to support our wives, learn some helpful lessons, and basically stay out of the way. Well, that is not how it goes. We were all very involved and hands on for the class. At one point we did some roll reversal. So I got to practice breathing while Emily told me how great I was doing. Oh yeah, it was entertaining, to say the least. Finally, the class was 7 hours long on a beautiful Saturday, but as I said, I am glad I took it. I would recommend doing the one day class over the 6 week classes. We covered everything and it did not feel rushed. The nurses were great and knew their stuff.The 7 hours really did go by pretty quickly.
This morning we saw the doctor for a routine checkup on Mom and Baby's progress, and everything was moving along great. We are down to the last 8 or 9 weeks. Things are moving at warp speed now.