Log In | Sign Up Now | Help & Support

Message Me | Follow Me
Joined Nov. 10, 2017 8:45pm

Alioth's Pregnancy

My Due Date: July 22, 2018
I have given birth!
Age: 41 years old
Location: Virginia, United States

View All My Journal Entries

My Journal


May 31st 2918 Prenatal Class Update
By Alioth » Posted May. 31, 2018 1:09pm - 232 views - 0 comments

So in our second prenatal class (neonatal care), we finally got to breastfeeding. There was a lot of good advice. Also, a lot of encouragement as the midwives feel that the first two weeks of breastfeeding/early motherhood are terribly hard on one. And they also talked about how they can help, as well as how to stay saneish through the whole process, how to test out your breast pump, different feeding holds, etc.

I also found out that a detailed table is sent home with the new parents. For the first weeks, we're supposed to record every feed, how long from each breast, every diaper's contents and what time of day they happen, baby's body temperature every couple hours, and breathing rate per minute, etc. Which I had no idea newborn's body temperatures fluctuate so much, or that their breathing patterns are so different from an adult. And they talked follow up visits, neonatal massage, cradle cap, cord care, bathing, what do with vernix, delayed cord clamping, placenta options all that good stuff.

Apparently if I leave my placenta behind (I don't want it anyway) it gets donated to a search and rescue dog training organization. They freeze it and bury it and train the dogs to search for the scent of human blood at different stages of decay. Kind of a weird thought, but donating to science sounds a lot better than eating it!

And we also practiced stretching techniques to relieve back pain and adjust baby's position with one of the on staff doulas. It kinda weirded my husband out to have a woman stare at us and give instructions while we stretched together. But I'm really happy a doula will be provided during labor as part of the package, even if I'm not a fan of yoga balls. Lol.

The first class, last week, was all about labor and delivery. I felt that tonight's class was way more useful. I'm glad Josh came too, as I'm going to have trouble remembering it all. A lot of other topics were brought up.

And, in other news, the kitchen is almost painted. The floor guy can't come until June 25. I hope baby stays put until after the floor and cabinets are in! We are going to have to finish from the ceiling down. The sink keeps falling apart and having to be duct taped together. So I'm sad to have to wait another month before we can put in the new sink, but whatever. I'm also worried about putting off setting up the nursery until after the floor is done. I don't want it all covered in sawdust after all, but it would be nice to unpack the crib or car seat or something.

This Saturday is my MIL's baby shower for us. I'm properly terrified of the whole ordeal. Haha. We had my family's baby shower already at the church with no power. I ended up doing a lot of the work for it myself as flash flooding (our area made the news for something!) made baby shower day extremely dramatic. A lot of people couldn't come as they were trying to pump water out of their homes and clean up. But the group that did come out was fantastic, and made it really fun.

Comments for this Journal Entry

No comments yet. Be the first!

You must be logged in to post a comment. Log In or Sign Up