Breastfeeding class

We went to a breastfeeding class on Wednesday night. At first we were both pretty nervous- it was scheduled from 6-9 at some lady's house whom we had never met. But Jen had heard that this lady was and is a fantastic doula so our hope was she wouldn't be too nutty.
Thankfully as we arrived we realized two of the other enrolled couples had been in our Bradley class- so it was like a one week reunion :) Class ended up being very fun and even Ryan thought it was interesting. The teacher's goal was essentially to provide us with the foundation and appropriate expectations for breastfeeding- but even more importantly to provide us with the strong motivation to keep on trying and the resources for support if and when we need it. Apparently 50% of women who try to breastfeed don't make it past about 3 weeks.. but if you can make it through the first 40 days odds are you are going to have a successful breastfeeding relationship. Our goal is to exclusively breastfeed for about 6 months and then go from there- and hopefully with what we learned in class and access to all of the support websites and personnel we will meet that goal. The teacher provided us with a lot of information about the benefits of breastmilk for both me and our kid- hopefully those are enough to keep us going when and if we hit a roadblock.
I feel pretty lucky that I have a husband who was willing to attend breastfeeding (and Bradley) classes and who has a great memory- he was already quoting facts and stats to his siblings and to me in the last couple of days. Everyone reinforces that one of the keys to successfully breastfeeding is a strong support system- check! Now let's hope all the other bits fall into place.