the B word

Last night was our first class of 4 at Paoli Hospital, where we'll be hopefully delivering our baby boy in 2 months or so. It was a Breastfeeding Class, and I was a little nervous for my husband, who doesn't even like to mention the word breast, let alone watch videos of how to properly latch a baby onto one! I had this vision beforehand of the instructor being like, "Ok Ladies, everyone whip out your boobs...." and my poor modest husband jumping under the table. Fortunately it wasn't that bad. He did a great job for the most part, paying attention and reading the material handed out to us. We had to bring a baby doll with us (to practice different holding positions), and it was cute to watch dave interact with the doll, making it talk and move it's arms as if to hit me and stuff. He got a little uncomfortable with the video, which definitely was a lot of large breasts being shoved into babies' mouths, one after the other. Understandable for Mr. Pure-in-Heart. I think it helped that there were about 25 or 30 other people there, 1/2 of whom were husbands. . . who all had to sit through the same thing. He used some of the video time to formulate and write down on the back of a handout, arguments against evolution... some of the amazing stuff we were learning about how babies and moms are designed was inspiring him... and provided a good distraction from the giant nipples up on the screen.
The best part really was learning about all the cool ways God's made babies and His design for feeding them. Since they can only see about 6-12 inches away from their faces at birth, it helps that the nipple is like a dark bull's eye/target. They can aim for it, and then, they're about 6-12 inches from the mother's face for bonding-- how perfect a design! They're also born with this instinct to bond from skin-to-skin contact, and primarily learn by taste and smell-- how convenient when it comes to feeding from your own body! The other fascinating part (to me) was that Colostrum is actually said to taste similar to Amniotic Fluid, which is all the baby's been tasting/swallowing for months! So those first drops of breastmilk are not only an immune-boosting/antibody-forming/healthy dose of nutrients, but it's tasty too! Such a miracle-- and the benefits to both mother and baby are endless-- from lowering mother's (and even baby girl's) risk of breast and ovarian cancer to helping prevent illness and future allergies in baby, to losing pregnancy weight faster-- and far outweigh the potentially painful first couple of weeks of learning how to get the hang of it... What an amazing Creator we have! I marvel at the beauty and intricacy of His intentions...
PLEASE remind me of these wonderful things when i'm in agony a couple months from now!! I know millions of women have gotten through it, but I am sure it will be tempting to give up at some points... I've heard the horror stories :)
Tonight is our "Childbirth 101" class-- yikes! I can't believe this is all happening!