Antenatal Classes

I haven't written anything for a while, I guess I've been waiting for my my head to accept it's new reality. There was a bit of a thing not long after I first posted, which was an awful thing to go through, but I'll write about that later on. Right now I want to talk about the antenatal classes my wife and I have been going to.

Michelle wanted to do them, I believe we have enough literature at hand to get us through, but I guess I have learnt a thing or two I might not have known before.

The first class was last week, where everyone had to introduce themselves, their line of work, the progress of the baby room, and the name of the future baby (if one had been decided upon). Everyone there seemed to have great jobs, and some had named their child. I told them that our child had a temporary name (he is a boy)." His temporary name is Knut!" I said. "After the polar bear!"

That was met with an overall disapproving look, apart from a German couple, who obviously remembered the little polar bear born in a Berlin zoo. I don't think anyone else knew what I was talking about.

The interesting thing I learnt was that when the dilation of the vagina is not sufficient, that they DON'T cut straight down to the anus, but sideways! This is always one thing that filled me with horror, that two would become one, like a frog's. An episiotomy, is what it is called, which makes it sound a lot better that it is.

We  had a tour of the maternity ward with a the head nurse, whose name is Jackie, Nurse Jackie, (hope she's not popping pills like her TV series namesake)
She was describing what they would do if the baby came out "flat" and directed our attention to some machine with a kind of pump thing on it. I had visions of my child being inflated like some party balloon. I therefore had to ask : "When you say "flat", do you mean flat like a pancake?"  I'm sure I saw signs of relief around the room that I was the git who chose to ask the question everyone was too embarrassed to ask.

"No, I mean pap". replied Nurse Jackie. She's Afrikaans and had translated directly, but basically she meant  
"weak". Rather promptly and thankfully, the visions of my son, the flying saucer, dissipated.

Today was the second class, where I learnt all the about the pain my wife would soon be enduring.(she is going for the natural option) She can take a lot of stuff for it, such as some morphine-like derivative, but that means the baby gets it too. I may as well offer him a joint when he pops out!  And then there's the epidural- but it all looks pretty painful and unnecessary. I only say unnecessary because I have a plan. Michelle may disagree, but I believe she has a low pain threshold, and my plan is to start acclimatizing her to pain. I haven't told her this yet, because she would reject it out of hand. I thought I'd tie her to a chair and introduce a gentle pain at first, something like a Steve Hofmeyer ballad. I said "gentle"? Ok, not his voice at first, just the background music. 

Then I would introduce his voice, then a DVD. Just when the pain seems insurmountable I will play her reruns of Jacob Zuma's speeches. If I do this for the next few weeks, I sure that labour thing will be like a walk in the park for her, and I'll probably open my own "labour pain made easy clinic".

The little guy is getting a bit impatient I think, he's been kicking like crazy, or is he already hyperactive? I'll have to go and open one of those books again...