Lamaze Class #2

2 down, 2 to go.

This week was all about the few weeks before labor, and the first stage of labor where you're cervix opens to 6cm. Things we learned:

- Pregnancy is just plain gross. There are plugs that have to fall out. Sacs to be punctured. Fluid to spill everywhere. At one point the teacher suggested that you may WANT an enema (something I could never imagine anyone requesting). Like Sue said after we left, "People talk about how beautiful birth is. Those people are stupid. Before birth is gross. The baby is gross when it comes out. And after the baby comes out is gross."

- Apparently nipple stimulation is a good way to get labor moving along. Just to be safe, I thought we should stimulate both our nipples. You know... to cover all our bases.

- We learned two breathing patterns to help get you through the early contractions. I'm coming around to the idea that these at least might help to dull the pain a little bit; Take the edge off of it as our teacher says. Time will tell I guess.

- A big part of class was working on learning to relax parts of your body. That way when you are stressed (read: having a baby), you will be able to relax your muscles and release tension. At one point she walked us through an exercise where she sounded like a stage magician trying to hypnotize us all. Is it weird that I want to cluck like a chicken every time I hear the word "baby" now?

How NOT to Talk Dirty

WARNING: The audio is not safe for work.

Less than two months left!!

This is a little late but look, less than two months left to go!! Hopefully the baby won't come too late, he probably will be at least 8 pounds as it is!!!

Lamaze Class #1

Sue and I had our first Lamaze/birthing class yesterday. I don't really believe for a second that some relaxing breaths will make this any less painful, but the other information we get in these classes is helpful. Sue and I have repeating that line from Gone with the Wind over and over lately: "I don't know nothing about birthing no babies!" These classes help suppress that feeling a little bit.

I truly believe in the "it's a small world" theory now for 2 reasons: 1) Scott Weeks, a guy I went to high school with, was in our class and 2) I was in Boy Scouts with our instructor's son.

Next week we start the lying on the floor and breathing and all that jazz. This week was just walking through all the stages of the birth. BTW: I didn't really need to see how much my wife's cervix will have to stretch to get that kid out (10cm for those playing at home).

Did you know the average labor is 18 hours long??? Crap. And apparently they don't want you even coming to the hospital until you're most of the way through it. They say its because you can be more comfortable at home. NEWS FLASH DOC: I would be more comfortable with $100 million dollars of monitors and machines hooked to my wife during that!

New Plan

As a follow up to my last post, maybe we could try this. You know... just in case my kid turns out to be a dinosaur of some sort:)



From http://xkcd.com/531

Babies R Us

So its getting closer to baby time and I'm finally starting to freak out about it a little bit. I mean, its a freaking BABY! A little person. And more importantly its OUR little person. How the fuck does this work? I mean, the baby is going to come out; we get like a day in hospital to figure everything out, and then its "so long, good luck with that!".

Before our baby class this week, I was really kind of mellow about the whole thing. Since that class, its like a switch has been flipped in my head. All I've been thinking about is all the ways I could really screw this up. Nothing specific. Just a general dread that this is all going to end very badly.

Someone tell me this is normal.

New Years Car Repair

I had another chance to show off my man powers again today by changing the spark plugs on our Pontiac. As usual, my man powers were mostly thwarted by the engineers at GM.

I want to punch each and every one of the guys that designed the engine of my car in the balls. Everything is working now, but I knew I was in trouble when my father (who is a mechanic) first looked under the hood and said "where the heck are the spark plugs?" (questions similar to "what/where the heck is that?" seem to occur a lot with this car). After we found the spark plugs under a metal plate on top of the engine, my father heads off leaving me to swap out the spark plugs.

Everything was going fine until I tried to put that plate back. It took me 40 minutes to get the f$#@ing cover back on the spark plugs because between the plate and each spark plug was a rubber gasket. Because of all the other hoses and pipes around the top of the engine, getting that plate in was a bitch. Every time I would try to get it into position, I would knock one of the rubber gaskets off that connect the spark plug to the ignition system and have to start over! The neighbor actually came over to have a look at why I was swearing in my driveway :)