Finally, the week is over and the crazy schedule is done. Originally, Jesse and I had three birth classes to go to this week – Tuesday would have been our 4th birthing class, but was canceled due to the weather; Wednesday was our make-up class since we missed one due to the accident; and last night was our Breastfeeding class. As you can imagine, Jesse is a bit cranky now. Each class was three hours long and we haven’t done that since college (even then, I don’t think Jesse did that).

Where to begin? Let’s start with the birthing class. I actually learned some things that have changed my outlook on the whole labor/delivery aspect. I never realized that an epidural could also be a bad thing. For instance, there are some studies that say an epidural will increase your chance of a c-section; while at the same time there are studies that refute that claim. There can also be some short term side effects to the baby. The more we learned about the epidural on Tuesday, the more I’m thinking I’m going to stick with the drugs. I know I’m going to be in pain, but just take the edge off, it doesn’t have to disappear all together. Of course, ask me again once I’m actually in labor – I may change my mind. Of course, once if I do get the epidural, that means I won’t be able to walk around and will be confine to the bed. Not sure if I like that.

During the class, we were also taught some comfort positions that will help alleviate the pain of contractions. Most of them seemed to include a lot of massage and either sitting or bending over. I’m hoping that Jesse and I’ll be able to distract myself enough that I won’t need anything stronger than an epidural, but we’ll see. I want to say those were the main topics for the 3rd class.

As for the breastfeeding class, I found that one to be a bit more informative. The instructor didn’t so much as go over techniques, but also gave us some generalized information. I knew that breastfeeding a child helped the baby gain immunities to viruses and it helped mama lose weight; but what I didn’t know is it can also reduce the risk of pre-menstrual breast cancer, certain stages of childhood leukemia, can stimulate the development of the baby’s vision, and a bunch of other stuff. I also found this article, which gives more reasons to breastfeed to. This class just reaffirmed the decision that I was going to breastfeed.

Something else I learned, I can start pumping my milk and giving it to Ian after 2 weeks. Something else the instructor said was the longer you wait to get the baby accustomed to the bottle, the harder it’ll be. She assured us that as long as we’re breastfeeding more than bottle-feeding, than baby shouldn’t get confused. I want to start bottle feeding Ian as soon as I can; not because I don’t want to breastfeed, but I want to give Jesse the chance to have some bonding time as well. So the goal is, once the two weeks are up, than I’ll start pumping milk so Jesse can do at least one feeding a day. He needs some bonding time to.

We also learned about different positions that can be used to breastfeed and some other stuff, but this was the most important in my mind.