Labour of Learning

Last week, Babydaddy and I attended our first prenatal birthing class. We're taking a six week session, allowing us lots of time to absorb as much information about effacing, placenta, pushing and vaginal tearing. Hooray? 

We started off with an informative icebreaker, where we got to ask other parents if they knew about a variety of labour and birth facts. Babydaddy's personal favourite appeared to be the question about the effects of nipple stimulation during labour. As it turns out, our instructor explained, it would take a lot of nipple stimulation to induce labour to which Babydaddy responded with an enthusiastic "Yessss!" Yep, I procreated with this fella, ladies.

Interestingly, the class gave me the opportunity to experience my partner in a new way -how he is as a student. This made me reflect on my own behaviour as a classroom learner. It's been a long while since I was a student in a traditional sense. Apparently I haven't changed -I answer questions when I know -or think I know- the answer. I speak up when no one else wants to volunteer information. I ask questions, only when I'm really curious. 

Unlike the majority of student-parents in the group, I'm fairly far along in my pregnancy. Many woman aren't due until February or March. I've already begun reading and thinking about labour and birth, giving me that academic "edge" that pushes me to be such a keener. Hopefully I won't be "that mom", causing the other parents to loathe us.

Type A!

Busy Baby!

The baby often busies himself with high kicks, exploring my ribs and what I can only imagine is punching. I've reached a point where we can now see the baby moving...although my layer of chub is preventing us from distinguishing little hands or feet. I'm ok with that. When my cousin told me about her preview of their son's face pressed into her abdomen, I was freaked out. There's a reason we're not going to Babymoon Ultrasound!

One of my favourite parts of feeling our baby move around happened earlier this week. Babydaddy rested his head against my bump and asked the baby, "What are you doing in there?" Almost immediately, the baby punched him in the cheek, as if to say "None of your business, Daddy!" I'm not sure how I feel about our child already giving attitude; especially when Babydaddy and I are so anti-violence. Maybe the baby was saying "I'm a chip off the ol' block" and giving his dad a friendly knock on the chin. Only time will tell!

Sleeping Beauty

If I was one of the seven dwarves, they'd call me Sleepy. After years of enjoying a level of energy that has afforded me luxuries such as successfully functioning on as little as three hours sleep and never needing coffee to perk myself up in the mornings, I am now a slave to my bed.

Each night I find myself falling asleep reading, watching TV or holding my phone in the midst of a text exchange. After I do the dishes, I quickly change into my pyjamas, trade my contact lenses for my glasses and brush my teeth before the pregnancy-induced narcolepsy hits me unexpectedly.

Every parent scoffs at my whining about the fatigue: "Just wait 'til the baby's born!" Frankly, I'll take it. I'm optimistic that once I give birth two things will happen. One, I'll return to my former motto of "less is more" vis-a-vis sleep. Two, I'll be so excited to be a new mom and love my little monkey so much I'll want to be awake to observe, nuture and nourish my baby.

Let me have that...even if it's not true.

Noisy Toys

I've been pregnant for thirty weeks. Despite what I've heard about pregnancy taking forever, this pregnancy has flown by. Only ten weeks before baby arrives -provided he stays put until my fortieth week- and I feel like there are an infinite number of things to do before his arrival.

Babydaddy and I have registered for our baby shower. That process, which I think has taken us over five hours collectively, was fun and stressful. We want to cover all our bases and make sure baby has what he needs to be comfortable and cared for. We also don't want to appear greedy, maniacally rubbing our hands together and cackling at the booty we've amassed. Realistically, babies only need so much and we only have so much space to store baby's goods.

Looking at some toddler toys, just for fun, we saw a dolphin ride-on toy. Given the limited space in the house, this toy would never work for us. Babydaddy imagined the little monkey trapped in the hallway, sideways, à la Austin Powers in the first film. Our kid is lucky though. We don't hate musical, noisy toys. We like some of them. A lot. But we'll buy them. Don't buy them for us. We're good.

Bladder, where art thou?

For the first time in 28 weeks of pregnancy, I sneezed this morning and peed myself just a little bit. I had to laugh. No use getting upset over spilt...urine. Perhaps this is the transition from decent bladder function to avoiding funny situations in fear of piddling my pants. Maybe this is why my dad has been ordering free samples of adult diapers online and stockpiling them in the linen closet for the past few months.

Unfortunately this is not the first time my bladder has refused to cooperate with another bodily function. Specifically, during our babymoon, I threw up a fruit leather and the force of the vomiting was such that I full-on peed my panties. After cleaning up the mess on the floor, I threw the now-soaked undies into a plastic bag and tossed it in with the laundry. Note: I wasn't about to throw away those gems...they have a T-Rex on the bum with the words "Man Eater" above its head. C'mon.

When we got back to Winnipeg, Babydaddy wound up doing a load of laundry with the now-putrid panties festering in the confines of the plastic bag. When he opened the bag, instead of puking or throwing them away, he washed them -twice- and said he felt bad for his babymama and what I'm going through for our baby -"Poor Coco". When he told me that, I was reminded once again why I love him so much. I hope Little Monkey has a big heart like his/her daddy.