Ages 6 and up

Only 6 years and 3 months to go! Woo hoo!

Breast is best

Tonight was the second of our classes - Breastfeeding. It was actually supposed to be the 3rd, but Cory and I and a dozen others managed to turn up to the Labour and Birth class the other night, but unfortunately, the educator didn't! That one has been rescheduled until Dec.

This class focused upon the benefits of breastfeeding for both baby as well as the mother, plus the community. In some ways, it was sort of preaching to the converted as all in attendance had planned to breastfeed if possible.

We each received a plastic baby and were instructed in the various holds, as well as the basic routine you go through. We also watched some videos on technique and what happens when you don't do it properly. Ouch!

Of course, everything that was taught will most-likely not be very effective when you have real live sucker down there, but they'll go through the whole lot again once you're in hospital with the baby. It was actually very useful to hear about what we're in for and what is involved. We won't be going in with our eyes shut.

Have we done the right thing?

Today we attended a Thanksgiving Day party with friends. We've been doing this for quite a few years now, and each year the number of children grows. This year, we had 3 x 3 year old boys, a 2 year old girl, an 18mth old girl and three in-uteros.

Suffice it to say, when 2 of the young lads decided to nude up in the backyard, sword-fights a plenty, along with the general constant noise, wrestling, parental scolding, placating, feeding etc.... well we were a little concerned about our future.

Still - Naomi looked gorgeous, as per usual! (Oh... and we're not really having second thoughts...)

Next round of testing

We had another appointment with Dr Lionel today. This also coincided with the next lot of testing - which was the 'glucose test'. Here, I get to forgo anything sweet for 24 hours prior, then swig a sickly-sweet lemonade-type drink, wait an hour, and get some more blood taken from me.

My mum (Marilyn) came in with Cory and I to see Dr Lionel. Lionel asked her some background questions about her own experiences with pregnancy, labour and birth. He jotted them all down. He was impressed that I only took 3 hours to come out, and that was on the day I was due.

Mum thought Dr Lionel was very nice, and quite a bit younger than she expected. He reminded her of George Clooney a bit - not that I can see it myself. We heard the heartbeat again and all was progressing well.

Swelly Belly - 26 Weeks

Here's the latest. There's definitely no mistaking it for anything else these days. There's been some wardrobe rearranging and the maternity clothes are now being favoured.

Pelvic Flooring

Tonight was the first of my pre-birth sessions, delivered through our hospital, and (thankfully), paid for by our health insurance. They aren't actually held at the hospital; they are held where (hopefully), I'll be staying in the 2rd and 4th day after the birth. Frances Perry House (the hospital) has a deal with the Sofitel (swanky city hotel) where mothers and babies can stay their last two nights, with hot and cold running midwives, at a luxurious hotel suite, provided everything goes ok. So... the classes are run in one of these hotel suites (hopefully not the one I'll be staying in!)

The first session was "Physio and Relaxation" which was a women's only class. The physio side of things was focused on exercises and other things you can do to prepare yourself and your body for the rigours of birth. We spent a good deal of the time focusing on the pelvic floor muscles and how to exercise and strengthen them.

The relaxation side really should have been called 'Active pain management', as we looked at our natural response to pain and how to work through that. To do this, we were actually put in pain by holding ice cubes in our bare hands for one minute, which is the approximate length of a contraction. It's surprising how much an ice cube in your bare hand actually hurts! My natural response was to focus inwardly and breathe through the pain, sort of like meditating through it (which, as far as natural responses go, is a pretty good way to be - much better than talking, complaining, jumping up and down or screaming, as some of the others did).

Sire... I have a cunning plan!

As you can see, we've taken a few photos and answered a few questions - and that's largely coming from friends and family wanting to be kept within the loop. So the plan was to put stuff on the web so that people can check it out whenever they felt like it. It beats spending heaps of time emailing to people...

There were a few ways of doing this - but a friend of a friend used the 'Bundle of Joys' website. I should have been suspicious as soon as I saw the obvious grammatical error in the title. The features the website had on offer was great, although we can't say the same for the choice of backgrounds. After finding the one (yes, single one) that we found palatable, we set up our site.

Check it out : http://sites.bundleofjoys.com/babyboardy/

Anyway, once we set it up, their site went down for a few days. Then it came back up for one day, and now it isn't displaying photos. So it was at that point that we decided to go the blog instead. Especially, seeing how we were going to have to fork out some hard-earned for any more than 1MB webspace.

Don't get me wrong - you may have far more success with this website that we did. But once bitten twice shy. Where going with what we know and staying with the blog. (Yep - this post shows the date where we started and everything else has been backdated...)

Swelly Belly - 25 Weeks

Strike a pose!