Maybe we should sign up for extra tutoring?

When we went in for our first OB appointment, they gave us info. on signing up for childbirth/newborn  classes. I am not crazy about doing this. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed and prepared, it’s just that I’m more of a learn at your own pace kind of girl than a sit through two six hour Saturday sessions that make me feel like I’m trapped in prison person (my approach to college = go to class and do crossword puzzles, or just not go to class at all, then teach myself a semester’s worth of info. before the exam). My aversion to sitting through the class got me thinking about alternatives. Maybe there is an online class? Maybe we can just read some books? Better yet, it’s not like people attended childbirth/newborn classes a hundred years ago (disregard comparative stats on mother and infant mortality rates), so maybe we don’t even need to do much of anything at all? 

As I was sitting at the computer checking out the class options I noticed there was a “condensed” version that was a few hours shorter, so I started looking at what wasn’t covered in the condensed version to see if we could get away with it (I am realizing how horrible this sounds as I am typing it).  One of the topics omitted from the condensed class was “umbilical cord care,” so in an attempt to prove we could just skip that part, I quizzed Tim to see if he knew what an umbilical cord was.  Thankfully, he did. Next I asked him if he knew why we would need to know about umbilical cord care, and here is (roughly) how that conversation went:

T:  “When they cut the cord they tie it off and a small piece is still attached to the baby” (so far so good), “and it takes a few weeks before the piece gets sucked back up into the baby’s stomach.” (crash and burn) 

M:  “Well actually, the cord falls off.”

T:  “Oh yeah that’s right.”

We will be attending the full version of the class.