26 Weeks and First Classes

This week I started my 26th week. 

Last night I went to my first baby related class, well if you don't count the class of my peers.  Being someone who has been around through several, yes several is a lot of people I am talking about, who have had a baby or two and who are currently having another baby or third... I have had some education, actually thankfully a lot of useful education, regarding births, after births, and babies.  Sometimes sort of too much information, but I am armed with a knowledge of a lot of possibilities about what can happen, good and bad.  To get back to topic here though, I still will be taking childbirth classes with Kris starting next month and took my first class on my own last night.  It was more of an informal informational gathering than a class but it was, well, scary, confusing, and really helpful too.

Okay okay so the class was Anesthesia and Pain Management.  It was at the hospital here in Corvallis and led by a nurse and an anesthesiologist (who go to med school plus an additional 4 years of residency in anesthesia by the way).  They simple informed us about what pain management options are, what an epidural is and how it is administered and works, risks and rules.  So what I didn't like is that once you get it you can't get up out of bed.  Makes sense I know, but they do have these walking epidurals in the world, that is not an option here (not sure what the difference is if it is just an really low dose, but my sense is for safety and liability the hospital wants you in bed).  So for the being stuck in bed part the issue is I see myself walking, maybe getting in the tubs they have, moving about as long as I can.  So really that just means waiting as long as they would let me before getting the epidural if I am choosing to get one.  What I liked is that they can administer varying dose levels, so I can get a low dose level where I can still move my legs and will still feel more pain (the point is not to take all pain away but to significantly reduce it anyway), then increase it if I feel the need to as the pain increases or not.  I just want to feel my legs and I am okay with feeling a bit of pain, I just don't know how much it will be. So I don't know if I will get an epidural, but I want to go with the mindset that I will see how it is feeling and how quickly labor is happening and take it from there.  

So this week the baby is developing lungs, which means it just might be possible for him to take a breath at the end of this week. The air sacks will continue to grow for the next nine years - I never knew it was this long. The membrane that keeps the air sacks separate from the blood vessels is now thin enough to allow for that oxygen carbon dioxide exchange we call breathing.  Nice to think if the baby really had to it could probably survive outside of my safe belly home.

Also the retina completes its development of its normal layers.  He still isn't seeing anything because his eyes are still sealed shut and it's I guess it is pretty dark in there.  Auditory and visual system brainwaves are developing which means that baby's brain is registering things like sound and light, well like I said it is dark in there so how he registers light I'm not sure, but maybe he can see the change in light like we can when our eyes are closed and really bright lights are still present.

Hearing continues to develop, they say the baby can and will start reacting to load noises (I haven't really noticed this) and soon he will recognize my voice and hopefully Kris' too - he just has to start talking more. I feel a little silly talking to my stomach, but Kris really does too, he does kiss it though.  I rest assured that somebody is listening though.

One thing says the baby is the size of a Hot House Cucumber my tracker on the blog says an eggplant.  I guess maybe the cucumber would be more in length and eggplant is more of the round size???