Childbirth Classes, Pool, and Nudity

Greg and I went to our first childbirth class on Tuesday evening and it was pretty successful. We have 6 consecutive Tuesday sessions in total, from 7-9:30pm. I've heard many people say childbirth classes can be silly and should be taken with a grain of salt, which is totally fine and probably true. The great thing about this one however, is that it is in English...a HUGE blessing! Even if some of the advice is a little "new-agey" for us, the class provides a fantastic environment to learn about and understand the German system. The midwife teaching the course speaks fantastic English and seems to be pretty helpful in regards to navigating the hospital system, understanding what insurance will cover, and beginning to understand the role of the midwife. Also, since none of the couples in the course have a car, she told us all about "wickel unter lagen", which is essentially a pad to sit on in case our water breaks in the taxi...HA! We already received tons of handouts...IN ENGLISH...and are beginning to be able to decipher what we need to buy and what we need to bring with us to the hospital (some of which is different than in the states, since the hospital is run differently). She also gave some good tips for the father's...Greg is so cute in the class! I'm looking forward to next week because I'll meet our midwife (one of our very own, courtesy of the German government), head to the hospital again, have another childbirth class, and meet with my doctor. Should be a fruitful week.

Speaking of fruitful...it's been pretty hot here the past couple days and there aren't any signs of letting up in the near future. This is much tougher to handle when we don't have air conditioning, I have a personal heating unit attached to my belly, and I'm wearing these ridiculously hot and sweaty compression stockings. The pool in our gym has been FANTASTIC for relieving the belly weight and cooling off. It's hilarious to swim laps while the water aerobics class is going on...they create some crazy waves and the instructor is often speaking unintelligible German until all of a sudden he says, "jumping jack!" Hahahaha!

Even more fruitful is what happens outside of the pool. I went to the roof porch to dry off a bit before heading home and I was the ONLY person wearing ANY type of clothing! I felt like an American prude because I first wanted to giggle then was trying desperately to look everywhere BUT at the naked people. Pretty hard to do when they were covering pretty much all of the lounge chairs. God love them for being so comfortable with themselves. Truly awesome. (I still kept my suit on...)