It’s in the bag, so to speak. Five Friday night classes and call it done. Our class had three couples all of us pregnant with our first. Dee Bitner was our instructor.
For the early part we had snacks and visitors for this final class of experienced hypno-birth mothers to tell their stories. There was quite an array. From one Mom who was in such a trance that she doesn’t remember hardly anything that happened and had such time distortion that several hours felt like 20 minutes. Another Mom arrived very last minute at the hospital because at home she didn’t think she was that far along until she felt the baby move down. Oops. She stood up for her birth and never really pushed, just let her uterus do all the work. It was interesting, although with all the screaming toddlers running around, a little noisy. It’s clear that parents of small children grow accustomed to the noise level. Those of us still pregnant didn’t have it so easy. I imagine we will learn that skill over time.
The remainder of the class was marked by us sitting, standing around in various positions trying to find comfort and listening to the final words of wisdom from Dee. The most entertaining part was when Gary asked Dee about breast feeding the baby and pumping at the same time so that the father can also do some feeding too. Apparently, for the first few weeks, it’s important for the mother to do all the feeding for specific reasons I don’t recall but seem to remember reading about elsewhere. Dee’s advice was that during the first month, the mother takes care of one end (feeding) and the father takes care of the other end (diapers). You should have heard the dismay from the male crowd on that idea! Talk about getting the bum end of the deal. Ha ha. Actually, Dee explained that a completely breast fed baby’s poop doesn’t stink. Experienced breast feeders weigh in on this one.
Gary got a few photos, most of which came out kind of blurry in the low light. Using the flash probably would have been helpful.
Dee imparting wisdom, and me listening and looking not very comfortable because I was feeling a little stiff:
The whole group. Laura and Russell on the left, the couple whose names I’ve shamefully forgotten in the middle, and Gary and I on the right.
Laura is a nurse and Russell has a construction related job of some sort. Russell and Gary showed up in almost matching shirts, which I thought was humorous but nobody pointed out. The husband of forgotten name hails from New England and has done a few tri’s and told me a story about him blowing out a knee trying to keep up with a hotshot tri chick in a cycling class from up that way. He couldn’t remember her name but she won some Ironman somewhere. Turns out her name is Dede Griesbauer. His wife is 30 weeks along. Everyone’s really cool and I’m a little disappointed to not be seeing them any more. It was fun comparing pregnancy symptoms and have our husbands laugh about our night time hot/cold flashes and subsequent blanket tossing activities. Oh well…
I just wanted to share our experience that Elena was bottle fed right away in the hospital due to low blood sugar and was still able to breast feed without a problem. I pumped a lot in the beginning and even continued to supplement with formula and this worked out great for us. It was nice to have this flexibility with feeding right from the beginning so that others could help me.