This week we had our Centering class on Wednesday at the Birth and Women's Health Center, where we'll be having the baby (hopefully!). It's a group of five midwives and several delivery nurses that all focus on healthy, natural births. They are extremely strict about who is eligible to give birth at the center, you have to be in a certain age and weight range, have no complications, and begin labor by week 41. If you develop any problems during your pregnancy, you will have to give birth at their affiliated hospital, the Tucson Medical Center, that is 3 minutes away and a midwife from the Birth Center will still be your primary care provider during the whole birth. 

The Centering class is one of their prenatal care options. It is a group of women and their partners (or whoever else wants to come along) that are all due around the same time who meet together for prenatal appointments in the evening. We weigh ourselves, have our blood pressure taken, and have complete access to all of our medical records including correspondence from the ultrasound technicians and lab results. Each couple meets privately with the midwife for about ten minutes to listen to the heartbeat, do a general check-up, and measure the size of your belly. The rest of the time is spent in group discussion. There's usually a general topic, but really it's whatever is on people's minds. I really like it because I would never think to ask some of the questions that the other women do, so it has been really informative. It's also really cool to have all the men be there and be able to ask their questions and talk to each other as well. We have been meeting once per month up until now. As of this week it will start to be every two weeks, and then down to every week in the month of July. 

This weekend we went up to Phoenix because Joe had his final National Guard drill responsibilities, which included his Change of Command Ceremony. Horray for almost being done with the Army! His official service out date is June 4, but he's pretty much done with doing things for now. We stayed in a hotel we found on Hotwire, called the Indigo Hotel. It was extremely hip. The shower had a single pane of glass near where the shower head was, with a 1ft diameter whole cut in it. And that was it. No door, no curtain, just empty space. Somehow, water did not end up all over the bathroom like I expected it to. I finally figured out the hole: it's so you can reach into the shower to turn the water on without it getting all over you until it's warm. At least that's my best guess. Our door opened to the outside, and the sun was shining so as to cast a perfect shadow of us. So we decided to experiment with shadow pictures. They are deceptively hard to take, and this is the best of the bunch. 

The way my hair was sticking up reminded me of some sort of Dr. Seuss character, and then I figured it out: the Sneeches! I think it would be difficult to tell the difference between a Sneech and me if all you had to go on was the shadow we cast.