Childbirthing Class aka Freak Out Class

Hey ya'll! So Shane and I attended our Childbirth Preparation Class today at Barnes Jewish Hospital where I'll be delivery Baby G. The class was from 9am-1pm and covered breathing, relaxation techniques, role of the support person, hospital interventions, medications, cesarean birth, postpartum period and a tour of the OB facilities. So pretty much everything you need to know about delivery in a 4 hour time frame. I thought is was pretty good.... until... the video. Ya'll.... first of all Shane and I sat at the front of the class... which we should not have done because every time I would look at Shane I would see his face and get really tickled and start giggling to the point I would be crying. I really tried to be mature about it... but I just couldn't. First of all let me just warn you that the women in the video are naked. Yes... fully naked! So not only did we have to see random ladies' hoohas but we also had to see random ladies' boobs. There were parts of this video that will haunt my dreams forever. Now I have to say that at the beginning of my pregnancy... I was freaked out. I got over the freak out part and once I started feeling her move I started getting excited. But after that video... now I'm kinda at freak out mode again. I know ya'll are probably judging me right now... and thats okay cause I still love ya'll and I know that your eyes have not see what our did today. So... I forgive you. :) There was a couple of times that we thought, "this is it... I'm going to throw up all over the floor." The thought crossed my mind so much... I had to leave the room and walk around of a second.

So now that you have completely lost all respect for me and my motherly instinct I tell you some of the funny things our teacher said. She was telling us about contractions and how as the baby is moving down it gives you a feeling like you have to poop. She told us about how there was a patient who was having contractions very close together and the patient had a sudden urge to go the the bathroom and poop so she went to the bathroom by herself and pushed to poop and ended up having the baby fall in the toilet! Now this next thing she said I know Joel will appreciate. Another thing she was telling us was at the end of the class and everyone was starting to leave and she said, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Having sex and or nipple stimulation can help bring on contractions. So I am just throwing that out there... but just so you know... I'm not going to stimulate your nipples for you."

Well besides the very awkward moments of the class. I have to say that I have really enjoyed being pregnant. I mean... the first trimester was horrible. I could hardly keep anything down. I lived off of peanut butter with apples and cheese with crackers for like almost a month. Then I would crave mashed potatoes at like 9:00 in the morning. Running to the bathroom every 5 seconds thinking I was going to throw up all over the place wasn't that great either. But once I hit 12 weeks, it really was like a light switch... all of a sudden I was hungry all the time. Even now i feel like I have a lil' hungry hungry hippo inside me. ha. I am pretty much running to the bathroom every 5 seconds... but instead of needing to throw up I just have to pee like crazy. Wow...I am sure this is probably all really gross and ya'll are wishing I wasn't writing this kinda stuff. ha. Sorry!!!

The really cool thing about being pregnant is watching my belly get bigger and watching/feeling her move. I have to say this is the coolest thing ever and I thank God to be able to go through this. It has been cool watch the different stages of her movement too. At first she was more of a flutter... or like when you have a muscle spazzium. Shane couldn't feel those. Then she went from flutters to actual punches or kicks. That was really cool. She would get pretty feisty. I remember the first time I saw my belly move. I was over at a friend's house doing laundry and I was reclined on the couch. I looked down for a second and saw my belly pop up and down like I was cooking popcorn inside my belly. I was amazed! As soon as I went home I made Shane stare at my belly with me so that he could see her move. Now that she has gotten bigger she doesn't have as much room to move around like she did before. So now her movements are her rolling around. She stretches alot and really likes to push on my belly button (like she is doing right now). I am not a fan when she does that... cause it really hurts. It feels like she is going to bust through my belly button.

Well... I have probably talked way too much about me being pregnant. But you could have just stopped reading it. :) I hope that ya'll are doing great and we miss ya'll so much you have no idea. I hope ya'll take turns coming up and staying with us. Baby G has to meet our Auburn family right? Please be praying for me, shane and baby. We love and miss ya'll.

We're still here!

So Brenna is in beast mode, and i'm gonna be a daddy. Weird. How am I going to be entrusted with another human being? I forget to eat sometimes. I bite my fingernails. Biting hers will be so tempting. I still hate waking up early, much less to change a doo doo diaper or feed someone. Sometimes i drop things. I'm taller than the avg person too. At babies'r'us, i didn't see any helmets for babies.

It's going to be a lot of fun, and at times, no so much fun. We've got 8 weeks before she hits us like a ton of bricks. We have no clue what to look forward to, even though our friends continue to tell us stuff. I hope she looks more like Brenna. Minus the adult size. Babies should be small. When yall see our baby, i think yall may want one immediately, which is a problem one way or another, for 75% of the people that are gonna read this.

She is now around 16 inches long and weighs over 3 pounds, about the weight of 4 navel oranges. Yes, Kinzie, do it when you go to the grocery store. She's not kicking and stretching as much as she has in the past few weeks. That's supposed to be normal, though. When she was kicking, it had to be one of the top 7-8 craziest things i've ever seen in my life. She's really sneaky though. She knows when i touch Brenna's belly. She automatically stops moving. Then, when i finally give up on the experience, she starts again. So, i've figured out how to sneak up on her quietly.

It's been fun seeing Brenna pregnant. I can tell she loves it so much. She really developing a maternal, protective nature about her. I had hoped to give more updates, but 7 months into this, this is all you get. Oh well. Maybe more updates will come, maybe not. We love yall and hope to see yall sometime! We'll be in B-town for Christmas!!