First of all, last Saturday we attended an all day (9am-4:30pm) child birthing class at Bryn Mawr Hospital - where we will be delivering. There were about 12 couples there, all expecting their first child. We started off with a tour through the maternity wing delivery rooms, which were surprisingly very large and updated. At Bryn Mawr, you labor/deliver in one room then get transferred to a recovery room. One thing I learned that I was initially upset about is that after you give birth you have about an hour with the baby before they ship him off to the nursery for a few hours while you transfer rooms. I didn't like how we would be separated for a few hours right after birth, but after some follow-up with a labor & delivery nurse (the tour guide was not a medical professional), we were assured that many of the tests can be done in the room and they can cut down the amount of separation time as much as possible. By the time I move to the recovery room and clean up, baby B should be back. Phew!
The rest of the class comprised of labor signs/when to go to the hospital/dealing with pain/etc. Much of the information discussed I already knew due to my obsessive reading/researching everything, but it was good to be able to hear how things run at Bryn Mawr, and practice some relaxation/breathing techniques. There were a good amount of couples that wanted an unmedicated delivery and our teacher seemed to favor that angle of things, which wasn't exactly what I thought I would be getting when signing up for a class through the hospital... later when talking to the labor & delivery nurse she said that it was pretty rare these days to have someone deliver without any drugs. As my doctor friends say, "sure people used to give birth without any medications. But they also used to undergo surgery without any anesthesia... should we do that too?" kind of sums up my feelings on the subject, but I'm going into labor with an open mind/flexible birth plan. As long as everyone is healthy, that is all that matters!
I also had my 30 week OB appointment this week (Wed). It was my first of the "every 2 weeks" appointment. I saw a nurse practitioner, who was great at answering a lot of questions that came up after going to the birthing class and made sure we could talk to a l&d nurse who worked at the practice. We have our 32 week ultrasound scheduled for thursday - March 1st! Hopefully Baby B is more cooperative this time and not so camera shy. We'd love to get some pics of his face, and the doctor wants to get better photos of his cardiac anatomy since we were basically looking through his back last time. Should be crazy to see how much he's grown in 12 weeks! It'll be fun to share the pics at my shower next weekend!
Finally, we visited a pediatrician's office on Thursday. They are affiliated with CHOP - one of the best children's hospitals in the country, which is a big plus. The host q&a sessions for expecting parents with the nurse practitioner every other thursday, and there were a good 8 couples or so that showed up. The practice is VERY pro-vaccine (they will turn you away if you won't vaccinate your kids), which is a bonus to me. No crazies here :) We will probably check out one other place before deciding - their office hours weren't the greatest, and the other practice is closer so there will be some pros and cons to measure.
We've been busy "nesting" as much as we can without baby furniture. I've been making "no sew" curtains like crazy. The kitchen and baby's room are done:
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| New Curtains: Kitchen sliding glass door |
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| New curtains: over the sink |
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| Dean the model! |
Sorry for the pics being taken at night! The color is a little off (still learning the new camera) but the kitchen is a pretty yellow and grey geometric pattern on a white background. The baby's room (below) is taken with my iphone since I was lazy today and just finished them:
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| Fun curtains in baby's room! |
I will definitely take better quality photos once I do a nursery showcase post :) It's amazing how much curtains can transform a room. We love both results!
Looking forward to:
- Our 32 week ultrasound on thursday!
- My baby shower on Saturday in my hometown. Thanks Aunt Peggy and Mary Beth for hosting! I've already started getting some more deliveries to the house. There's nothing more fun than coming home after work to see a package sitting on your front porch! Here's baby B's current stash:
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| Baby B: Already spoiled! |
- More nesting! We accomplished a ton this weekend. On Saturday we went to Ikea and bought a giant bookcase/shelving unit for our currently unfurnished living room. We plan on using it to store books/display vases/photos etc. The bottom row will have baskets for baby toys. We also saw arm chairs we liked that we may go back and purchase to round out the room and make it useable.
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| Ikea Expedit |
- Nesting continued. We also picked up a fun shade of green for baby's closet. It's a lighter shade than the curtains, but coordinates well. We started the painting process tonight - the goal is to have the closet all ready to go before the baby shower next weekend!
- There are a few other areas in the house I have my eye on to spruce up. I'd love to finally hang up all our pictures in more permanent places (I sort of threw stuff up on existing hooks, but I'd like to put a little more thought into it). I'd love to create something like the pic below for the wall between the kitchen and living room for family photos:
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| "Yellow Lettuce" by Olympic - For Baby's closet |
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| Gallery Wall inspiration for family photos I'll also be doing a gallery wall in baby's room, but that's hard to plan until the furniture comes in! Looking forward to some more productive weekends! More belly pics coming soon! :) |
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