So today was our day at Christ Hospital for our birthing class. Oh happy day! Describing this eight-hour experience is a daunting task, but I have to try.
We showed up with the prerequisite pillows in hand and met our instructor Irene. She's been a delivery room nurse for twenty years and was well qualified to teach the class. I headed immediately to the back row, still understanding that if you're going to screw around you need to be in the back. We sat next to this guy named Dave and his wife Holly. Dave was my kind of people, possessing his own arsenal of smart-aleck remarks that we were able to unleash with military-like precision. Ironically Dave is on staff at the Crossroads Community Church, working in their children's ministry. We were even able to talk about the hilarious Real Old Testament. There were a bunch of cool people in the class that made the experience more enjoyable.
After we introduced ourselves it was straight to the diagrams. It feel like Biology all over again [note to reader: the only "D" I ever received was my last semester at Bible College in Biology. Why does a minister need to know Biology?]. Suffice to say, I now understand why men fifty years ago never went into the delivery room. There are some things that happen in there that men could survive without knowing. But trust me, I learned them today. I saw video . . . after video . . . after video. Tell me, dear friends, what possesses a woman expecting a child to say, "Hey, the baby's coming. Let's allow a film crew into the delivery room, film me in the least flattering view possible, and get full view of my "hoo-ha" so thousands of future parents can watch for years to come"??? This is why the Cleavers slept in separate beds [maybe Wally and the Beav' were adopted].
So after lunch we ended up on the floor to work on breathing/massage junk. It was a good . . . for the ladies who got free massages. But after seeing all the diagrams/video footage about the birth, I'm ready to give Kelly anything she wants. The craziest thing that Irene had us do all day was to spoon while lying down on the floor as she read some visualization about walking on the beach [seriously]. I would've laughed but I was trying to fall asleep. In the moment, I wondered what effect a nuclear blast would do to us. Years later, when archaeologists discovered our bodies, they would've had a heck of time figuring out what was going on there.
All in all, it was a good day. I'm glad we took this class in one day instead of spreading it out over weeks. And I think we'll be ready to bring home baby.
I need to take a shower.
We showed up with the prerequisite pillows in hand and met our instructor Irene. She's been a delivery room nurse for twenty years and was well qualified to teach the class. I headed immediately to the back row, still understanding that if you're going to screw around you need to be in the back. We sat next to this guy named Dave and his wife Holly. Dave was my kind of people, possessing his own arsenal of smart-aleck remarks that we were able to unleash with military-like precision. Ironically Dave is on staff at the Crossroads Community Church, working in their children's ministry. We were even able to talk about the hilarious Real Old Testament. There were a bunch of cool people in the class that made the experience more enjoyable.
After we introduced ourselves it was straight to the diagrams. It feel like Biology all over again [note to reader: the only "D" I ever received was my last semester at Bible College in Biology. Why does a minister need to know Biology?]. Suffice to say, I now understand why men fifty years ago never went into the delivery room. There are some things that happen in there that men could survive without knowing. But trust me, I learned them today. I saw video . . . after video . . . after video. Tell me, dear friends, what possesses a woman expecting a child to say, "Hey, the baby's coming. Let's allow a film crew into the delivery room, film me in the least flattering view possible, and get full view of my "hoo-ha" so thousands of future parents can watch for years to come"??? This is why the Cleavers slept in separate beds [maybe Wally and the Beav' were adopted].
So after lunch we ended up on the floor to work on breathing/massage junk. It was a good . . . for the ladies who got free massages. But after seeing all the diagrams/video footage about the birth, I'm ready to give Kelly anything she wants. The craziest thing that Irene had us do all day was to spoon while lying down on the floor as she read some visualization about walking on the beach [seriously]. I would've laughed but I was trying to fall asleep. In the moment, I wondered what effect a nuclear blast would do to us. Years later, when archaeologists discovered our bodies, they would've had a heck of time figuring out what was going on there.
All in all, it was a good day. I'm glad we took this class in one day instead of spreading it out over weeks. And I think we'll be ready to bring home baby.
I need to take a shower.