Prenatal Class #1

In my community the Public Health Unit offers free prenatal classes to all expectant parents. There is one class that they offer during the first trimester, followed by a 6 week series later in the pregnancy. On the pamphlet it recommends calling as soon as you find out you are pregnant. So, I called way back in April after my second beta just hoping to get the class schedule. The nurse who I spoke to tried to get me signed up for the class the very next week -Yikes! That was far too early for me. The next month's class didn't work with my schedule, so that left July. At 14.5 weeks it's a bit late, and my husband is working out of town all week, but I went anyway on my own. The topic was on prenatal development and nutrition, and it was taught by a dietician. All a good review of the information I've already read, and she had some extra handouts on updated guidelines on vitamin and mineral levels which are good to have for a reference. I was amazed that a few of the women there didn't know they needed to be taking a prenatal vitamin, cutting down on coffee, or eating breakfast.

The topic of weight gain came up and most of the women were shocked that they could expect to put on that much weight during the pregnancy, and were worried about their figures and how quickly they would bounce back. This is the least of my concerns, as long as my baby is getting enough I'll sacrifice my body in whatever way is necessary.

She showed a video of fetal development. Of course it started with the couple lovingly holding hands, then the egg being released from the ovary and sperm meeting it in the fallopian tube and working to break through the shell, then and the fertilized egg traveling down into the uterus. As I watched I thought about the very different start to life our little one had. The team of people at the fertility clinic extracting the eggs, stripping the coating, picking out a few single sperm and inserting them into the eggs with a needle, growing the embryos in a dish and then dropping them back off in the uterus a little earlier than when they belong there. On the upside, we have photos of our baby at 2 weeks + 3 days when he/she was just 8 cells big. I've been monitored very closely through the most critical time of the pregnancy for fetal development, and I'm very conscious of what I do and eat to give my baby the best chance at being healthy.

The "push the baby out" classes, as my husband likes to call them, aren't until the fall, so that should give me some time to get used to being in a crowd of pregnant people asking strange questions. I hope by then I won't feel so different from the norm.