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Saturday, April 6th, we went to our first ever birthing class and I have to say, it was not really what I expected. I guess I thought it was going to be a little more “hands on”.
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The class was from 9-2 and it was packed! Oddly (to us), we were the youngest people there. Everyone, in the class, was first time parents and a good handful were late 30s early 40s! The class started with a Similac representative. He was nice enough, and was not too pushy. He knew he had to preach breast feeding or risk being punched by our nurse midwife! I didn’t get a whole lot from him.
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Up next we had a lady from a pediatrician’s office talk to us about the importance of picking a good pediatrician. She also answered a good bit of questions regarding first tests for baby in the hospital, right after birth, vaccines, and other things like that. Then we kinda got off topic with cord blood banking and you could tell she was not a huge advocate for that. A lot of people wanted to keep talking about cord blood banking, which I found slightly annoying. I would have rather them talked about the benefits of cord blood or possible benefits. Instead they talked a LOT about cost and places to look to bank. I got nothing out of that.
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After the pediatrician, the midwife went through a book about child birth and answered people’s questions. That was it! The book doesn’t go into great detail about what to expect and that’s what I signed up for. I wanted to know what to expect when you are having contractions, what to expect when you check into the hospital, what to bring to the hospital for labor (we sort of talked about this), what to bring for after baby arrives and you are just hanging out in your hospital room, do they really need to hook you up to an IV right away?, etc.
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In the end, I would not recommend wasting your money. The best birthing information will come from your friends who have been there, done that, and are willing to tell you all the details. I am lucky enough to have those ladies in my life and I feel way better prepared after talking with them than I did after I left that class. What I keep hearing from my gal pals is, you are never prepared enough, nothing goes according to your plan, the hospital provides a lot for you and since you pay for it, you should keep it, no one ever has the same birthing experience, and even if you bring nothing to the hospital, you won’t care. That’s what husbands are for!
the simon adventures 