33 Weeks: Gettin' Edumacated

So the main things I'm dealing with right now are fatigue, nausea/heartburn/reflux & other digestion problems, pelvic ligament pain, and rib pain. Which sounds like a lot but it's really not; I'll usually only be experiencing a couple of these at a time, and there's a longer list of symptoms that I've NOT had.

I thought I'd lump together my thoughts on our hospital's breastfeeding class and childbirth class this week, although the breastfeeding class was a few weeks ago. Our hospital provides a lot of classes: breastfeeding, newborn care, postpartum care, childbirth, CPR... I knew I wanted the childbirth one, even though it has a significant fee, because I really wanted to get an idea of our hospital's philosophies and procedures. I decided also wanted the breastfeeding class because it was free, and so many people say that breastfeeding was the hardest thing they'd ever done. (People who not too long ago GAVE BIRTH.) So yeah, I wanted to be informed about that.

Anyway, here are some things we liked about the breastfeeding class:

• learned some of the things our hospital does to promote breastfeeding
• saw/handled the exact type of breast pump our insurance provides
• asked my question about when to start pumping and offering bottles
• Tygan got to learn a lot of the basics that I'd already picked up from Pinterest articles

Things we didn't like as much:

• spent a lot of time talking about the benefits of breastfeeding, which we already knew
• went really quickly through mechanics of breastfeeding, problems/solutions

And things we liked about the childbirth class:

• learned the hospital's policies
• practiced breathing and positioning techniques for labor
• learned our pain medication options (nitrous oxide, IV narcotics, & epidural)
• found out our hospital's c-section rate and surgery procedures
• got a better idea of the flow from arriving at the hospital, to triage, to L&D, to recovery
• took the maternity ward tour (our hospital is realllllly nice looking)
• ate lots of snacks

Things we didn't like:

• the videos didn't work, except for the c-section surgery animation that made Tygan a little pale

It was a little intimidating to talk so much about labor pain, but it was ultimately empowering and made me excited. I kind of like the idea of taking the challenge and seeing how much I can endure. (Yeah, that sounds crazy.) The gist of my birth plan (which I hate talking about because people have so. many. opinions.) is to try everything else before turning to pain medication, and Tygan and I have been practicing massage, positioning, etc., and...it's kind of fun. (Yeah, again, sounding crazy. Whatever.)

In other pregnancy news, I got my first stretch marks! At first I was happy to see that we're making progress, yay! Then I was disappointed because I was kind of hoping not to get any stretch marks, even though I expected them, but not this early. In the end it was interesting how it made everything seem more "real," kind of like how my scars from other things like mountain biking and running and cooking all show that I've really lived, you know?