Another scan & a crappy antenatal class

Yesterday I had my 31 week midwife appointment. Everything was fine but when I asked what was normal for movement of baby, as some days she's mega hyper like she'd had ten espressos, and other days was so quiet it felt like she'd been swigging night nurse, they sent me back to the day assessment unit for monitoring. Two monitors were once again strapped to my belly, and I sat there for half an hour while the machine printed a long strip of paper with lots of wiggly lines. This time the midwife actually told me what they meant (they didn't explain much last time but assured me everything was fine. Seems like little miss is actually moving a lot, I just can't feel it! Apparently every dot on the bottom line is movement detected. The arrows with FM above them are where I pressed a button to register when I felt movement. Looks like I'm only feeling the big kicks and prods!

Anyway, even though all looked well, the midwife booked me in for a second scan today, just to be sure... and sure enough, my little monkey straight away started wriggling around and punching like a Wing Chun expert (as demonstrated in the scan photo!). Love that you can really see her face shape has filled out. Look at that cute nose!

Last night I was back at the PRUH (Princess Royal University Hospital) for my one and only 3 hour antenatal class. I met Carla and Emma there with their partners (so the boys finally got to meet everyone after probably hearing lots about each other). I'm not sure what I was expecting... maybe something like what you see on TV with dads sitting behind their pregnant wives, practicing breathing techniques and massaging their backs while they try not to laugh, but in actuality it was nothing like that at all! In fact, it was a bit rubbish!

Maybe it's because I've already read up on a lot, but I dont think I was told anything I didn't already know. We were shown a DVD of the ward, told which floor it was on and where to park, what to pack in your hospital bag, stages of labour, when to call the labour ward (when your waters break or your contractions are close together), when to come in (when your contractions are 3 in 10 minutes and 30 seconds long), types of pain relief (gas and air, epidural, pethadrine), options or birth (natural, Caesarian etc)... and that was pretty much it! It didn't even last 2 hours!

So now were supposed to be prepared for delivering a baby into the world AND taking it home. EEK! I really don't think it was enough! What about bathing the baby, caring for the umbilical cord stump, feeding, what to look out for in the first few weeks of birth, what to do if they won't take to the breast?! Nothing! Think I may have to go on an extra course or something... I'm sure I'm not fully prepared for taking a little human being home... if you an ever be!