Monday night touched on some very interesting topics concerning the postpartum experience as well as providing advanced review of the first phase of labor.
I was not thrilled to learn that the bleeding after a vaginal birth can last for up to 6 weeks - it just caught me totally off guard. Additionally, we learned about the blood clots - apparently if they come out of me at the size of a plum or smaller it is cool, but larger than a lemon need to call the doctor. My question is what kind of plum or lemon are we talking about here? There are many lemons that are equal in size to plumbs ... right? We saw some pictures of the clots and it freaked me out a bit - but I do feel much better prepared having had the experience and class.
(Moreover, I am not totally stoked on the reintroduction of Maxi Pads into my life. It has been a long, long time. Ladies, I know you understand.)
The most important postpartum lesson we learned was not to over do it in the weeks following the birth. I know that is going to be a challenge for me as I always have so much that I want to do, and apparently I have a type A personality where I like things done my way (who knew?) - my friend Lindsay just had a baby and she advised that she pushed it a little too hard at first and really had to step back. Hopefully I can take this advice and take care of myself and Thriller. I know we will have help from our family in the first few days, and I am honestly the most excited about having Phil (my brother in law) around to help because he will come to the table with nothing other than the intention of trying to make things easy and happy with us and no preconceived notions on how we should be doing things. Its funny how that works out, I want him to come like the minute I start having contractions which I never honestly would have thought was what I wanted. We are working out a list of other things we will need help with to share with our moms when the time is right and Morgan's Uncle Ken and Aunt Mary Lou, who are local, are primed and ready to be on call as needed, as well as our dear friends Chrissie and Graham who actually have way more baby experience than we do as they have nieces and nephews. Not to mention countless remote support systems of friends and most notably Morgan's Aunt Carol who knows all things baby and has already been an amazing resource and advocate for us. We are pretty lucky I believe.
All I have to do is let go and let all these people help us. Say a little prayer to help me get there :)
Review of the first phase of labor was awesome because Morgan missed the introduction in class 5. I think we are totally ready. I'm a little spent from the holidays and having company, etc - and have a bit of a list to get through. So, in a perfect world I'd like Thriller to give me about another week to get ready and rested. Will see :)
Before the holidays we had a realistic and disturbing Bradley Class 8 - we learned about the c-section. I don't want one, but if I need it what can you do? I was, however, disturbed by the video of a live c-section and to learn that they take your uterus OUT of your body and clean it and then reinsert it after the baby is born. AH! Hopefully we won't have to cross that bridge, although I am reassured to know that my OB is an old Deadhead, so IF we have to go into the OR at least we might be able to have some good tunes to keep us mellow.
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