A Class Act

so as of today, my husband and I should be ready to be parents. Or at the very least, give birth.

the key word there is should, but I digress.

Today, we attended a day-long class that was sponsored by the hospital that our little monster will enter into this world at. This class was FAR better than the milk-nazi class I attended earlier this week, but I'm not sure I know too much more now than I did last night at this time.


well, ok--- I did find out which hospital doors are open from what time til when... but already I'm having trouble remembering what those critical hours are. I DO remember the one that's open 24 hours, so I guess that counts for something.


I learned the early signs of labor, and all sorts of info and checklists as to when to actually call the hospital. The problem I have with this is that the two main indicators they list of when to call/go to the hospital are when 1- my water breaks, or 2- when my contractions are 3-5 minutes apart.

The water thing I can understand. If suddenly I find that I'm uncontrollably pissing myself (or what FEELS like such) --- I think I would go to the hospital, regardless of being pregnant or not. Unless, of course, I'm not pregnant, horribly drunk, AND at some bar, in which case it's time to pay my tab and get my ass home. Ultimately--- pissing yourself is cause to go SOMEWHERE, so that sign I think I can handle, even in the midst of realization that the monster is starting to come out of me.


This contraction thing, though---- I'm a little sketchy about this. If I don't know what a contraction is, HOW am I going to know when they are coming 3-5 minutes apart??? I've never admitted it, but I'm jealous as all hell of my online girls I chat with who know when they're having these braxton hicks contractions. These, of course, are the same girls who knew when their babies were moving and kicking at like, oh I dunno--- their third week of pregnancy???? Well, maybe not THAT soon, but still---- while I was trying to differentiate between whether I need to fart or hit the toilet really hard, they were all bubbly in their new joy of uterine movement. Eventually I caught on, but being Polish, it wasn't until I saw my whole stomach moving at the same time I felt the need to fart. I figured my intestines were in bad shape, but they weren't so far gone that they could make my whole stomach move.

But back to contractions. like I said--- I have no idea what a contraction feels like--- real, fake, or whatever. My stomach FEELS rock hard sometimes, but it could just be the monster's ass for all I know. As for pain--- well, when the little bugger starts doing karate, yeah, I can feel some sharp pains.... but I was also told that this is my uterus stretching to grow for the kid.

they say when it happens, you'll know. Well, I hope that's true. actually, I'm really hoping that my ignorance might pay off in the sense that I won't know how long I'll REALLY be in labor. I mean, if I don't catch drift of things until things are obvious to even ME, then maybe it'll be a shorter time from realization to birth. One can only hope.......