Joan Ellen Cornell

4:11 PM

Birthing class and Braxton Hicks

We started our birthing class yesterday at the hospital! It was really awesome and informative, i'm so happy we are taking it. The class continues today as well. Kind of long days (supposed to be from 12-6, but we got out at 5 yesterday and had some short break during)...but it's fun. There are about 9 or 10 other couples in class with us.

Yesterday we did quite a bit. First thing when we arrived, we were split up- men had to go in the other room and women stayed in the classroom. We had to then compile a list of likes and dislikes of pregnancy. It was interesting to see what the men liked and didn't like (although some were quite obvious, it was a pleasant surprise to see "finding out the sex" and "looking forward to teaching the baby" on the likes side...). But the funniest thing to me was the FIRST item on their likes list..."designated driver"...haha. As if we can even stay up late enough ever for that to actually be a convenience for them, hahah. We then talked about the history of birth, watched a birth video (which brought me to tears, of course)...learned some breathing techniques, learned about drugs used in pregnancy, and at the end of class had a relaxation session that made me fall asleep, haha.

So I went into this class being the person who raised my hand when she said "Now who wants an epidural as soon as they pull into the parking lot?"...but after learning a lot about them, i'm now thinking that that may not be the route I want to go. While it scares me to death to think about doing it naturally, I can't imagine being STUCK in bed and not being able to move- and connected to a million machines and iv's and crap. I think I am honestly going to try for as long as I can to NOT get one. I will try using the birthing ball, and the jet bathtub and breathing techniques for as long as possible before I agree to an epi...it just seems so much less appealing now after learning about it.

Overall though, I am so happy we are doing this class together. I'm pretty sure Jeremy even appreciated the things we learned and had an alright time going...it felt like we bonded a little bit and I loved that I think the most of all...it was a good feeling :) I am really excited for class again today...and I'm {almost} going to be sad when it's over!

On another note, last night was really weird. After class we came home and let the dogs out, then went to dinner at a Thai place down the street. It was really awesome and good, and SPICY. Well, backing up a little bit- during class I was having braxton hicks contractions quite a bit, but I didn't really think much of it. But after dinner when we got home and layed down on the couch, I started having them every few minutes, and sometimes each for over a minute long. And when I would get up and walk around it seemed like it was only making them worse and not better. I started to get worried that they were happening too often, so I looked it up online, and sure enough I started reading that if they were happening over 4 times an hour and getting worse when walking that you should call your doctor. So at this point I was kinda freaking out and called the on call doctor at the office I go to. She told me to drink a liter of water, to lay down and relax, and to take a warm bath if I wanted. So I did all of the above. After laying there for a little bit, I started getting really tired, but was fighting it because I was worried something was going on. Finally I decided to just go to sleep. I woke up this morning feeling a lot better...seems like the braxton hicks are gone for right now, thank god. But jesus they were CRAZY last night and I was terrified I was going into early labor or something! Shoot! But hopefully all is well now...I guess if it starts happening again today, at least i'll already be at the hospital! Haha.

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