First Lamaze Class

Kayla and I attended our first lamaze class last week. It was a neat experience I must say. Our instructor has been teaching these educational classes for over 30 years. I really reccomend you men to go. There was a few women there that were either alone or brought there sister. If you are planning on being an active participant in your childs life, does it not make sense to learn everything you can to help him/her enter this world? There were six other couples at the class, each with there own story. For this post I will describe how this first class went.

We started the class with an introductory about ourselves (name, age, gender of baby, etc...). After this we moved on to the meat of the class. Our teacher held a large circular sign up that said "pain" on it. Then she proceeded to add pizza shape sections onto the board as she described that each of these pieces (medication, breathing, comfort etc...) are your tools to reducing the amount of pain mommy will experience during birth. When she finished there was just one section about 1/8th of the original circle that now said pain. She described how much of a role the "supporter" (me) plays during the actual child birth. No matter what she stressed that it is important to do everything within our realm of control to ensure this expirence will be a pleasent one for both mommy and me.

Obviously some women want to have medication (epidural) and some may wish not too. Chosing against this will only increase the pain another 1/8th of the chart. Now this is a general chart that does nothing more than describe how these "tools" can help you during birth. I must say it was a very effective approach for me as a visual learner. Though she should have added a chart that demonstrated how much pain discomfort her damn uncomfortable chairs were causing me.

The rest of the class we talked about the basics of breathing, fears associated with child birth and basic warning signs of labor. Also, she described the differences of true labor vs. false labor, and how they can mimick one another.

Since I have more than likely bored you to death I will save the rest for my Wednesday post. I will highlight these differences and shed some light on the beginning stages of labor.

Our First Sonogram

For all you first time daddys out there, a sonogram is a computerized picture of an internal organ. They actually use sound waves to create the image and not X-rays. Which is considered to be extremely safe for a baby. It's a pretty neat deal actually. The technition squirts a little gel on mommys tummy and then uses a transducer wand to emit the sound waves, thus creating a picture. The only inconvience in our experience was that my wife had to drink like 60 ounces of water before the appointment (to inflate her stomach) then let half of it out in the bathroom right before the test. Other than that it was very easy and smooth. It was wonderful seeing our baby boy up on the screen.

As soon as the tech put the wand to her stomach, Ryker made his gender well known (as you can probably see in the picture.) Luckily we wanted to know the gender or else he would have ruined the surprise for us in the first 5 minutes. "He's a very proud young man." The tech told us. I will just leave you with this... I wonder where he gets that from :).

The First Gyno Appointment

Gynecologist... Get used to saying it fellas. You will be making monthly trips to this lovely doc for the first few months then bi-monthly trips, then weekly trips (depeneding on your situtation and the doctors prefrences of course). You need to learn to be comfortable not having any of the attention. This is all about your lovely mommy to be. She is the one that is pregnant, not you. Repeat this like a mantra in your head. It is easy to want to pipe up and give your 2 cents but please refrain. Use this time to soak everything in and learn as much as you can about what mommy has to look forward too. This way you can be ahead of the game when any situation arises. Usually they will weigh her, make her pee in a cup, and possibly take blood samples. (remember, this is from my experience. Every doctor can/probably will be different. This first appointment is usually too early to hear any heart beat of the babies. Don't worry if the doctor tries and is unsuccessful. Right now your baby is extremely tiny.

It is important to try and be at this appointment, the gyno will need important family health history and it's good to know yours and your wifes blood types. Off the top of my head I believe that if both parents are O- then there is a special shot mommy needs around 28 weeks to prevent any incapatability issues with the baby. Again, I am no doctor. Other than that these appointments don't take long and are really just to monitor mommy as the process evolves. It is important that you are there for her at this time, it will show that you are wanting to learn and be involved. So take a break from Call of Duty and get your butt to the Gynecologist. Maybe mommy will take you out for ice cream after!

Tip of the day: Be there for your wife/girlfriend/partner/whatever title fits. YOU'RE A TEAM!