We took another step on the long road to child ownership today by attending a "mid-pregnancy class" at our local hospital. I don't think this was mandatory but it was heavily pushed during several of our scans. We'd managed to skip the "early-pregnancy" one so felt obliged to do at least some preparation.
Oh dear. The class started with the usual introductions: who you are, how pregnant you are, whether you knew what you were having. The lady running the class - who was an "educator" rather than, you know, someone medical who actually knew what they were talking about - followed every "we're having a boy/girl" with the question "is that ok?" and a strange, rodenty grin. How are you meant to answer that? "I think it's too late to change now!" I wanted to shout after the tenth time she'd asked. Her delivery of the word "ok" was bizarrely extended: "ooookkkaaaayyyy?", rising, grating, like a kazoo, like heartburn.
As the class got going it quickly became clear that this was a worst-case-scenario affair. The "educator" took pains to underline just how unnatural and horrific the changes to a body during pregnancy can be. From loose joints and dropping things to gas, constipation, cramp. She had rhymes to help us remember how bad things will be after birth too: "she coughs, she sneeze, she laughs, she pees." She said it three times because no one laughed, so it's now stuck in my head, and it's not even grammatically correct!
Contrast was provided by a care and share, gender discriminated breakout session, where expectant fathers could...I'm not sure what the point was. "Did everyone here conceive naturally?" asked one when introducing himself, to bemused silence. "Anyone go through IVF? Because we did seven sessions of IDI," I don't even know what that is, "and six sessions of IVF before we got pregnant." Is there nothing that Americans won't share?
There was also footage of a couple going through childbirth (see previous sentence) with much less swearing than Hannah will manage, calming music playing in the background, and a narrator softly saying things like "you may think you are dying." The resulting baby looked suspiciously calm and not newborn. There was a time for questions and one woman wanted to know if she could still eat fish and, no word of a lie, started going through about twenty different species asking how much of each was safe to consume. "Can I eat 12oz of shrimp in one sitting?" Can anyone eat that? Another lady asked if she could still eat pizza, and I waited to be led through the Domino's menu. Blessedly no.
Then it was back to the "educator", and always that voice, "oookkkaaayyy?", like a blunt hacksaw cutting aluminium, like the mating call of an aquatic lizard. It kept distracting me from games of Jetpack Joyride on my phone. After two-and-a-half hours the torment ended and we filed out with the other shocked, scared, and disheartened protoparents. I should have asked for an epidural of the ears before the class began. At least, after this, birth is going to seem like a doddle. Right Hannah?
