Centering Groups: First Meeting

Today Zachary and I attended our first centering group at the birthing center. Centering groups is where you are placed with 5 other couples or so who are all due the same month that you are. The idea behind centering is not only to empower the mother to take more charge of her pregnancy, but to also connect moms and dads with other couples and build community throughout your pregnancy. It was incredibly exciting to meet first time moms and a lot of people our age. I can't wait for next month!

Every time you meet you are responsible for taking your own blood pressure and weight. After that you meet with the midwife to see how you are feeling, measure the uterus, and then listen to the baby's heartbeat. After that you join back with the other couples and the topic for that specific class starts. This class was focused on nutrition and exercise. At the end of every centering group there is either a birthing video or birthing story read to not leave the dad or mom blinded by the labor process. Future classes include emotional support, practicing labor, relationship roles, newborn care, etc.

I absolutely love coming here. I love hearing women talk about their positive birthing stories, how empowered they felt by the birthing center. I'm so thankful to have a place like this for my pregnancy! I firmly believe that labor is a positive experience. If you don't have a positive birthing story to share from your experience, please be respectful of my future experience.

Anyway, above you will find an audio recording of the baby's heartbeat. It's around 150 and pumping strong! Ignore the video, I was just focusing on audio. The baby is a wiggler though, took her a bit of time to get baby to keep from moving around so much to hear the heartbeat.

Zachary and I will begin reading The Birth Partner hopefully this weekend, which I am really looking forward to. 

Nothing sounds as sweet as this does. 15 weeks 1 day! :)