The group of expectant couples, and one young woman with her mother gathered waiting in the hospital lobby for the instructor to arrive. We did a brief round of introductions. Everyone there was due in either late November or December. Most of the couples looked to be in their early 30's like us.
The morning began with a tour of the local hospital's maternity unit. It is only 4 years old and is quite state of the art. There are 16 suites each private where you spend your whole stay from admission through delivery (unless you need to go to the OR for a C-section), and postpartum care. Each suite has a huge washroom with a tub and shower, all of the medical equipment stowed away discreetly in cupboards, a bassinet on a well-stocked cart for the baby, and even a window seat daybed for the dad. If I didn't know better I'd mistake it for a hotel. The floor also includes a NICU for the baby if needed as long as the baby is at least 32 weeks. So, it's comforting to know that as of next week if I started to go into labour they have the facilities to look after all of the baby's needs.
As we were walking out, I overheard one couple talking to another about how they were planning a home birth with their midwife. Then they began discussing the virtues of having a water birth in a pool. Not for me thanks! I feel really good about having my baby in the hospital and being under the care of an OB right from the go. My "birth plan" is really simple -do what needs to be done to get the baby out safely into the world.
We spend the rest of the day at the health centre covering topics such as breastfeeding, baby care & development, car seat and sleep safety, and labour & pain options. The nurse teaching the class has a 2 year old and is expecting again herself in March, so she had some good insight on things from the inside point of view as well. She answered our questions very objectively.
The topic of discussion at one point was about protecting from an unexpected pregnancy while still breastfeeding. The other couples were all worried about this happening. DH and I exchanged a little smile -no need to worry about that. It is not totally out of the realm of possibility for us, but we won't be worrying about using birth control.
Near the end of the afternoon the nurse put a video on about labour and delivery. Part way through the video, just as it got to the part for the birth support partners on things they could do for comfort measures during labour, I looked over and noticed DH had nodded off to sleep! I gave him a big nudge in the side and a glare. Sigh....
We talked about it in the car on the way home. DH thought the hospital tour, the breastfeeding and baby care parts were the most valuable (but of course he slept through the supporting your wife through labour part). He thinks I'll manage that just fine though having witnessed me go through a number of painful things already. If you've followed my blog for a while, you'll remember the surprise lining scrape/suction out when I went for my sonohysterogram at the clinic last fall, then the laminaria seaweed stretch of my cervix for the 24 hours prior to surgery in February, oh, and then there was the 6 days with the kidney stone in July. We'll see how labour pains rank on that scale, but I honestly am not that concerned about being able to cope with the whole thing. I also don't object to accepting some medications for pain if the benefits outweigh the risks to the baby. We'll just see how things go and make decisions as we need to at the time.
The one thing that is really important to me is establishing breastfeeding. I'm thinking about setting up a little support plan around this just in case we need it. I know it's something that a lot of people struggle with especially in the beginning, and it takes dedication and persistence.
Now to pack that hospital bag and program the phone number for the maternity unit into our phones.
I thought the discussion of birth control and breastfeeding was kind of amusing in our class too.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if you've seen it, but I posted a big long thing on ivf dot ca about things that were useful for me to know/do during labour in the What They Didn't Tell You or something along those lines thread. I listed some important things we learned in our prenatal class (including the role the husband plays, which was super helpful because otherwise I'm not sure he would have known what to do and I would have been mad but not always in a position to know what I needed or to be able to tell him).
I think you're already in the breastfeeding thread, but as I've said a billion times, having that support in the first few days was crucial to me so setting stuff up and knowing where the resources are ahead of time is a really good idea. It's one of those things that you anticipate issues and that does help... but when you're hormonal and feel that this is really important and you feel helpless and like you'll never get it, it's hard to keep that in mind. I always wished there was some way I could have practiced ahead of time so at least I'd know what I was doing.
Hey Silver!! I loved our hospital tour and pre-natal classes too! Our private room in our state of the art new Mother Baby Unit sounded just like your rooms...they were heavenly let me tell you! Just a wonderful experience to start your new family. Loved it! We went to a 10 week prenatal class sessions...they were awesome! But our teacher is a legend so there was never a dull moment in each of her sessions. Like you I had ZERO birth plan...well...if anything was better than 40 hours of labour followed by an emergency c-sec I was happy!! So low standards for me...hey...when you've got our luck you don't expect too much. I actually did not find labour as horrific that I imagined it to be as labour pains come and go...not constant pain like I thought. But by the time of my epidural...life was heavenly again and allowed me to relax and enjoy the anticipation of meeting our son. Good luck breastfeeding! Had I not had the skull crushing headaches after birth due to my blood pressure complications (I had bp issues at 23 weeks pg) I might have been able to stick out the bf-ing longer. So good luck to you!!
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ReplyDeleteThanks! Yes, I remember reading the labour thread -I'll have to go back and review it. Maybe I'll get DH to read it too. This morning over breakfast he was reading over the print materials we got at the class. I think he was feeling badly about falling asleep.
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