Our Awesome Prenatal Class

I hope that all of you are planning on taking a prenatal class. It was invaluable! We did the two week one at Provo's Intermountain Hospital. The lame thing was that the class was 3 hours long, but it was nice only having it for two weeks. A great plus to it, too, is that you get to go to a breastfeeding class for free when you take this class. That one will be in March for me :)

So, what did we learn? The first night was quite a bit of stuff I already knew. She went over terms and definitions of things. Then she went over other stuff I think I knew..... What I did learn from the first night were these things:

1) When to go to the hospital - mainly for unusual things. (Go when your water breaks, if you are having contractions and it's before you should be giving birth, if you have bleeding--especially with pains, etc.)

2) Signs of labor. This was great because I just can't imagine what contractions must feel like! So basically, if you have any uncomfortable feeling at regular intervals, and the intervals keep getting shorter and the pain keeps getting worse and lasts for longer periods of time, you are having contractions! If they are irregular at all, you are probably fine.

3) Stages/Phases of Labor. There are 3 Stages, and 2 Phases of Stage 1. Stage 1 is basically contractions. Phase 1, 2, and 3 are basically your contractions getting worse and worse. She said that Phase 3, in her opinion and from her experience, is the worst. It is called the Transition Phase. Stage 1 is so bad because it's basically your cirvix dilating and effacing (or moving farther apart and getting thinner). Phase 2 is when you get to push! She said this is better than Stage 1 Phase 3 because you actually get to feel like you are doing something, not just dealing with pain. Stage 3 is basically giving birth to the Placenta.

4) She showed us lots of pieces of equipment. The scariest by far: forceps. They do not look what I imagined them to.

Scary, right? It doesn't help that these don't exactly look clean....



The second night was Jed's favorite/worst. I just loved it all. Here's what we talked about:

1) Postpartum care. We got days/weeks of how long things will take to heal, how long there will be bleeding, how long till your milk comes, etc. Very interesting, and made me feel better, knowing what to expect. She also showed us what sort of things we will be wearing after the birth and what sort of things we will be able to do/take to help with the pain....

2) Newborn care. This was informative, but also repetitive for me. I've been reading my three books I have over and over in an effort to know what to expect, so a lot of what she went over was a review. It's always nice to hear it from someone who knows, though, because they add in the personal opinions and things like, for one child this worked, and for another it didn't. Jed especially loved them going over the proper way to put a carseat in your car and the baby in the car seat. You would think it would be common sense, but there are some things you want to watch out for, and who knows if we would have made some of those mistakes. Interesting fact: The county health department will do free car seat checks if you make an appointment, so you can have an expert tell you if you have it in your car correctly and if your baby is in it correctly! Very nice.

3) Birth video! We watched one made at the hospital, which was cool. There were four births. First was pretty basic, and it included an epidural and an episiotomy. Jed just about passed out at the end, I actually got choked up! The relief from the mom and the excitement of the baby being there made me so excited for that! The next birth was of a c-section. That was a little on the gross side..... Third was a VBAC and they used forceps.... Again, forceps are scary! I did not like watching that one. The woman in it was very funny, though. And last was a natural birth, which really was unfair to watch, because literally, she pushed 3 times and the baby came out. The nurse measured her, said she was dilated to about 9 1/2 cm, so she went to get the doctor, and when he came in, the baby's head was literally halfway out. By the time he had gloves one, the whole head was out and these little hands and arms were squirming their way out. If only I could be so lucky!

4) Tour of the Hospital. This was all done with pictures, but it was nice to see. Now I know exactly where to go (5th floor) when I'm in labor and I know what the room will look like, where I will go after delivery (4th floor), and all that jazz. This was something Jed and I both really wanted to know, so we were really glad we got to see this.

So, there you have it, that is what you can learn in a prenatal class! We are very glad we went, and it only makes us more excited for the real deal!