Prepared Childbirth and Car Trouble

Last weekend we spent 6 hours at a "Prepared Childbirth Class" at the hospital.  We arrived at 9AM - there were supposed to be a few other couples, but it was just us, and one other nice lady.  And the instructor.

The class covered A LOT.  Everything from the physiology of what happens when the body delivers (with videos), to pain management techniques, to expectations in the hospital, to recovery and what to expect, to caring for a newborn while in the hospital, to cord blood banking (I won a Baby Bjorn from the salesperson), to breastfeeding and kangaroo care at the hospital, to a tour of labor and delivery and post-partum rooms............

We left around 3:30PM.  Jeff looked at me a bit glassy eyed and said, "Mind blown."

Yeah.  It was that good.

In any case, I "feel" more ready, at least for labor and delivery.  I'm hoping for a natural childbirth and am ordering Hypnobabies home study to prepare and practice.  My doctors and midwives are supportive of both medicated and natural births, and are on board with natural as long as everything is progressing ok.  Hopefully Peanut stays on the good growth curve, keeps his head down (it is now), and everything goes well so I can avoid induction, Pitocin, drugs, surgery etc.

We are fully planning to trust my doctors and midwives though.  Because WHO KNOWS what will happen, right?  At the end of it, we just want a healthy baby and healthy mom!!!

On Sunday, we spent time with our friends who have a 9 month old.  She had TONS of baby gear she is lending me - I had no idea she was going to do that, and feel SUPER prepared gear-wise now.  She had a baby bassinet for the bedside, a swing, a Rock and Play sleeper, a playmat, and tons of clothes.  I'm so, so grateful because although the nursery is about done, we don't have much else ready!  We are supposed to get our 'fulfillment coupons' soon but I'm starting to get anxious we don't even have the car seat purchased yet.

And her generosity came just in the nick of time because my car's OH SHIT lights came on (you know, the one that says 'pull over and turn off engine immediately')...a complete head gasket replacements required, and no longer covered by warranty.  The warranty on my car ran out 4 months ago, even though it doesn't have 100K miles on it yet (only 60K).  It was going to be almost $3000 out of pocket.

I asked the dealership if there was ANYTHING they could do to make it cheaper since we were so close to warranty...looks like our repair will be split with this special program they have and will be around $1200 instead.  Still a lot of money, but way better than over double that!  They only crappy part is it will be at least a week in the shop to repair it, so we will have to share the Acadia.

Anyway, getting all that baby gear on loan has freed up cash to be able to pay for the car repair.  I am a grateful cookie this week.