Well, we’ve now completed six parenting classes with one more to go. All were at Northwestern and two (including a three-session one) were with the same teacher, whom I highly recommend.

Baby 411 BookOur first class was the “Choosing a Pediatrician” class. Not great although they gave us a nice book called Baby 411. We couldn’t hear the teacher so we had to move to the front row. She seemed new. This class we actually took in April. 

The next class was the birthing one, I forget the official name. We had a great teacher, Sonja, who was a former maternity nurse who only teaches classes now. She’s a great, tell-it-like-it-is teacher who had many years of experience. When she asked who in our class was getting an epidural vs. going au natural, all couples but one raised their hands for the epidural. She explained that all the video materials we watched of distressed women in labor were of natural births, meaning no drugs. She said that the reason was that if we watched vids of women who got epidurals, they’d be pretty boring since the drugs really worked well.

  • The first session, we went through identifying real vs. false labor, the general timeline, praticed breathing exercises and watched a birth video (not too graphic).
  • The second class we went over C-sections, among other things. Sonja stated that Northwestern’s C-section rate was around 28%, lower than the national average, and that they do not allow for elective C-sections unless the mother has had a previous one. She also said there is no “too late” mark at which a woman can’t receive an epidural and also that she pretty much can get one as soon as she arrives once confirmed to be in actual labor. All of that was reassuring. She also stated that the “emergency c-section” which is the rush to surgery with the general anesthesia is very, very rare and only accounts for 1% of all C-sections (1% of 28%).
  • The third session, we talked more about the birth and what happens afterwards, where everyone goes, where the baby is, monitoring everything, etc. At the end we took a tour of Northwestern’s facilities in the new Prentice Hospital (which is also where the classes were held, but on the second floor). While I don’t have anything to compare it to, it was very nice and very quiet. We actually saw a newborn in the nursery getting some routine tests! Also, Sonja showed us how from any terminal how a nurse or doctor could view the real time stats of any mother and baby in labor. We actually saw the labor patterns of a few mothers and watched their babies’ heart beats on an EKG, live. Amazing.

In between there, Elizabeth had a breastfeeding class which I did not attend. One of the OB/GYN’s suggested that it really wasn’t for the partners and I was concerned that my presence there might make the other moms uncomfortable if I was the only man. Nonetheless, there were about half of the partners there when Elizabeth went and she really wished I had come. In the mean time, however, I was tearing up Babies R Us, picking up all the remaining things we needed when Luke arrives. Much of it was on our registry, but we couldn’t take the chance that no one would get them and there was the frightening possibility that Luke could come early and we’d be unprepared. So after $550, I made sure we were up to speed as Elizabeth learned about… boobs and stuff. I bought an extra car seat base for car #2, the co-sleeper and the snap and go uber portable stroller. Also, some other stuff… bottles, diapers, wipes, etc.

We also took a Baby Basics class, also with Sonja. That was excellent, too and though, while very basic, was all good stuff we needed to know. We practiced on baby dolls of all ethnic varieties. Elizabeth had no explanation for why we had a black baby. Despite my obvious cuckolding, we learned how to diaper, burp and various positions for holding a baby.