The Leviners

Today was some kinda day- let's call it bittersweet. It all began when I woke up at 5 am with a yucky stomach bug. It was also Sam's 32nd birthday! I stayed home from work and he decided to stay home and take care of me (he's such a sweetie). After watching Madagascar 2 (again) and getting some rest I decided that at 3:00 I needed to meander out of bed. By 4 I felt like a human again and decided that I was going to try and make it our first lamaze class! This class was very interesting- Tammy- my OB's nurse led the session and gave us along with a room full of other expecting parents very good information on how this whole birthing process WILL WORK. I was a teensy bit nervous seeing diagrams, (especially when she first walked in the door and asked "Whose doing natural birth"- not a girl in the room raised her hand), pictures, brochures, and handouts on how my body will somehow birth a baby but afterward I thought that it was useful- after all I might just somehow remember this one session when I'm in the second stage of labor and remembering how Tammy taught me to breathe through a 90 second contraction- just think 2 commercials! Tammy was wonderful in her presentation and left no one in the dark so to speak about what would happen in each stage and phase of labor- somethings however were very interesting like: most women will only be in labor 15 hours (I'm thinking false I know people that have labored nearly 2 days), some women come into the doctor's office needing/wanting to be checked and they'll say "If I take my pants off I'll have to push", you'll get a second dose of an epidural after your baby's head and shoulders have entered the birth canal (we'll turn down the first epidural so you can feel when you have to push), husbands- don't let your wife hold your hand just make a fist and tell her to clench it, and so on and so on. After the posters were shown and presentation made some dad's to be looked white as ghosts- I'm sure they were thinking about the part when Tammy said some dad's- the biggest ones- just pass right out after seeing their wives give birth.
Seriously, it was a very good session and we have one more next Tuesday where we'll learn about c-sections, more breathing techniques, and tour the hospital. It just seemed like what she explained in an hour an a half- all the stages and phases of labor/birth would take a woman in labor forever to accomplish- but I keep reminding myself that God made our bodies so that we could do this miraculous thing- give birth.
Tomorrow makes five weeks from our due date- Tammy mentioned that most women give birth seven days before their actual due date- again interesting! Sam and I have bets as to when Caroline will be born and how much she'll weigh, etc. We are just so excited to be going through this experience and think that its the most wonderful thing ever.
I'll be posting more later!