Nutritional Information
So yesterday we had the first basic prenatal class. As badjeebus said, welcome to 5th grade. Seriously, we were all sitting around these tables, looking at a woman with transparencies. I was the only one who was volunteering anything— incidentally, she asked if anyone knew why very pregnant women shouldn't sleep on their backs and I answered with "it compresses the vena cava"... thank you, lovecarnievan— and even so, I wasn't talking much. At least she didn't have us do the full stand-up-and-introduce-yourself exercise that we don't really care about. Instead, she had us stand up and say how far along we were and what we've had to give up. I surprised her with "feta"— she said most people don't know that one until her class.

Well, some of us actually read the stuff the nurses hand us.

Anyway, since she's a nutritional specialist, she's very very big on proper nutrition, stressing how eating right can minimize or eliminate many pregnancy problems. And hydration. She told us that most horror story labors— the really long ones— involve dehydration. Oh, okay.

There were a few things I didn't know— lots of fruits and veggies is an obvious one, as well as the no smoking/no drinking, but no deli meat? Seriously? (She did say that Quizno's is okay because they toast the sandwiches. Huh. Crazy.)

And there's other little things, like, "Check your prenatal vitamins for calcium— there should be at least 1000 mg." And whaddayaknow, there aren't in mine, so we picked up a calcium supplement at the store. Or how she recommends beans like crazy because they hit five of the categories you need— protein, fiber, iron, calcium, and... shoot. Don't remember the fifth. So in other words, burritos are not only approved, they're recommended. Hooray.

But I piped up a couple of times about things like baby carrots (snack of the GODS, I tell you) and Trader Joe's Candied Ginger. I didn't mention the prunes— I love prunes, but I understand how most people are a little weird about them. (We couldn't find regular prunes at the store— seriously— so we got cherry-essence prunes. Pretty tasty.) And that's about it. I know why they do this thing. Most women don't have the huge pool of knowledgeable friends and relatives we're drawing on, and even so there's those last little bits of information. (No more Subway. Not until next summer at the earliest!)

Anyway, that's all. Thought I'd post something every once in a while so you'd know I'm okay. I'm okay! I'm good, even! My only problem is I'm already growing out of my clothes (two skirts retired in the last week) and I'm not even done with the first trimester.

"I think it'll be a boy," says Kari, my coworker.
"I think it's going to be huge," I reply.