Like many new parents-to-be, Colin and I signed up for the requisite series of birthing classes in preparation for Mackenzie's arrival. Throughout the months of March and April, we spent 2 hours every Wednesday night watching birthing videos, learning how to recognize each stage of labor, how to deal with and time your contractions, and coping mechanisms and breathing techniques for labor. When the day finally came for me to give birth to lil' Mac, I'd say I used about 1% of the information we learned in "baby school." In fact, the only time I even remember breathing through the whole process was in between the phrases "Are you giving me the epidural now?" and "You promise it's going to work NOW?" Looking back, I sort of feel bad for that anesthesiologist. They must put up with people like me (and worse) all the time. This guy was super calm and easy-going. And...he got it right the first time, which I hear is not always the case with epidurals. Anyhow, despite his excellent bedside manner, I still made him promise me that the medication was going to work NOW. I guess I should've had him pinky swear or cross his heart, hope to die while he was at it. But to his credit, he went along with my request and promised me. He made good on his promise and I love him eternally for it.
Anyway, my point here is that while we may not have used all the information we learned in baby school, we enjoyed the experience of going along for the ride with about 10 other local couples. Tonight we all gathered in a coffee shop in Wallingford for a baby school reunion. It was crazy to see all the women who I had only known previous to tonight with gigantic stomachs and swollen feet. Every single woman was glowing and completely in love with their new son or daughter. And miraculously, we were all beautifully unpregnant! I noticed cheekbones and thin legs on girls that I never would have known existed before tonight. We sat in a circle and recounted our birth experiences while we held our babies. It was so cool to hear how unique each couple's experience was and how interested our group was in each other's stories. I have to say, the best part came at the end of the night when we posed for pics. All the moms and babies lined up for pictures and you could hear tons of cameras clicking away. Then the dads and babies lined up for pictures and all you could hear was "WAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Cute :) Paul and I never got to go through that, I still to this day feel bad that we never made friends with anyone (parents to be) before Luke was born, I thought with ravenna we would (do some sort of class) but then again we had been through it before so what was the need, plus lucky for ravenna and us she got 2 friends already (ok one friend and one on the way) :) . How was the coffee shop? I really should try it out.
ReplyDeleteI love that little one with the huge fro! Is that a little girl? Hard to tell by the outfit. We only did the 4 week course of "baby skoo" which in the end, did not include a reunion (even though the class discription said it did! Hmph.) Looks like it would be so much fun to see all the new babies with the proud parents! Hilarious that they cried when it was Daddy's turn. All but Mackie, I'm sure :)
ReplyDeleteSo cute! The Daddy photo definitely has a different feel to it. I want to see them bigger! Can you send me the originals? I don't remember if we did a reunion with Colin, but I know we did with Hailey because she was a little charmer. I'm not sure how old she was, but it was a reunion and also a visit to a new class of pregnant couples. Hailey was sitting on her own which she did really early and made cute little punctuation coos at all the right moments. Fun times...
ReplyDeleteLooks like fun. We were baby school drop-outs. Can you say, "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!?? I don't think it had quite the same feel as your class obviously did. Spanish people don't tend to make new friends, hence the reason I have none.
ReplyDeleteSarah needs to come home. Come home sweet Sarah...
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