Happy Birthing!

On Thursday night, we attended our 2nd annual childbirth class reunion.  When we went last year, Lily was only 7 weeks old so it was neat to see how much the babies had changed since then.  Amy (our instructor) holds one every year and invites everyone that's ever taken one of her classes so it's not only our classmates but lots of other ones too.  Many babies in attendance and so much fun! 
Justin and I agree that taking her class was probably the wisest decision we made during pregnancy (well, that and choosing to have a doula) and the best $250 we have ever spent!  We've heard from others that there's no comparison in taking her private class compared to the ones that hospitals offer.  Let's face it, no one knows what they're doing for their first birth and we were fortunate to have amazing people in our life that pointed us in a helpful direction.  Our first step in educating ourselves was watching this DVD and after having our eyes opened, we proceeded to pursue plans to have a natural birth.  It was awesome to meditate on the idea that birth was to be an experience that I could consciously participate in (and actually enjoy!) without interventions instead of it being a series of medical events that happened to me.  Even though our experience ended up with complications, we were confident and well-informed thanks to Amy's teaching so we were prepared to make good decisions.  I'm so grateful for everything we learned and find it puzzling that most couples research more in looking for a good car than they do in researching birth options.  One of my favorite quotes from Amy is, "If you don't know your options, you don't have any."  Oh, and I must not forget one of my other favorites from class, "the pain and intensity of your contractions cannot be stronger than you, because it is you." Amazing!!
One of the other perks of her class is that we've made lifelong friends with some of our classmates.  All of our due dates were within a three week span so right around the time of Lily's birth, we were receiving emails from the other couples sharing their birth stories too.  It was so neat!  So, now that you have a little background, you can see why it's quite fun to get together with these folks once a year and reunite, catch up, and hang out for a bit.  If the Lord wills and we have another little Jones baby someday, we'll definitely be calling up our sweet friend Amy again! :)

Us with Amy

Lily, Lillian and Rowan with their mommas

 Lillian and Lily.....born just one week apart

There were all sorts of little statues of animals like this in the park and she kept giving them kisses.  Very sanitary, I'm sure.

This is her signature funny face right now.  Doesn't it remind you of this face from the early days?

Then we ventured down to the beach for awhile before we took off.  It was chilly and windy but still made us all smile.  We love the beach!  Here's hoping for warmer days soon so we can spend more time there.