Friday, October 7, 2011

Bradley Birthing Class and A Belly Pic!

         Wednesday was a big day in our pregnancy filled world.  Wednesday morning S had a doctor’s appointment, the last monthly doctors appointment.  Dang, can’t believe that starting next month she will be in her 3rd trimester and going to doctor’s appointments every other week.  It all goes by so fast (yet at the same time, not fast enough).  This was the first one that I haven’t been able to go with her to, which made me a little sad.  She got to hear Jude’s strong steady heartbeat (this time he did not kick the machine) and they did all of the normal measuring the belly sort of stuff and everything looks good.
      Then Wednesday night we had our first Bradley Birthing Class and it was awesome!  If you are unfamiliar with the Bradley method, here is a tiny quote from the Wikipedia page, “The Bradley Method emphasizes that birth is a natural process: mothers are encouraged to trust their body and focus on diet and exercise throughout pregnancy; and it teaches couples to manage labor through deep breathing and the support of a partner or labor coach.”  So basically, there are 12 classes and we meet every Wednesday for two hours each time.  In order to be a Bradley teacher you have to have had a “Bradley” birth yourself, do tons of academic work and go to a week long Bradley teaching seminar amongst other things.  One exciting thing about it is that just by coincidence our teacher (who teaches out of her house) lives about two blocks away from us.  We drove to the first class just to be sure we knew where we were going, but I think that weather permitting (and it’s Austin, so I’m sure the weather will allow) we will walk to and from the rest of the classes, which is cool.  We don’t get to walk to anything, we live in a rather suburban part of Austin, so the only thing we could really walk to is a gas station, which isn’t that exciting.  There are 3 other couples in the class (but only two of the other three were there for this first class) and so far everyone has seemed pretty fine with us being in the class.  We really enjoyed the class, it was fun to hang out with other couples expecting their first baby and of the three of us couples that were there this week we are all expecting boys.  This first class was more of an introduction, so we didn’t do too much but we got sent home with homework- mostly exercises for S to do and a few relaxation things for us to practice each night together.  Over all I think it’s going to be a really good thing for us and I’m excited to keep going. 
 
      And I’ve been meaning to post a new belly shot of S for a week or two now, so here is her most recent photo, though it is a few days if not almost a week old at this point.  Gotta love that beautiful round belly!

-Liz 

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