"We're Not In Kansas Anymore" Part 1

This is a fantastic quote from a one of the greatest movies of all time that easily applicable to so many situations. The irony for me today is that in our child birth class, the teacher used that phrase to describe what goes through your mind as you enter the delivery room. At the very same time, I was thinking that phrase in reference to her class.

This could be a very long post, but then it was a very long day. All I can promise you is that you've not read a review of child birth class like this...now you might have thought it, but I'm bettin' you haven't read it!

The day started out and I felt like I was going to church. You know, nobody makes you go, but you feel an obligation. Then when you get there, everything is quiet and cold, everyone is afraid of eternal damnation if they speak to each other and the room is filled with things that you would never think to have in your own house. The "ceremony" starts and the teacher gives us a basic overview and tells us that we just paid $50 to learn how to breathe. At the time I dismissed this comment, not realizing that she was 100% serious...I'll come back to this again.

We move onto a couple of ice-breakers. One of them split us into the mothers-to-be and the "coaches" (a title that I am quite used to thanks to Courtney's college friends and the multiple teams that I have actually coached). We then needed to elect a captain and that captain needed to memorize everyone else's name and introduce them to the group. I turn around and count the number of guys in the group (12) and blurt out, "all we have here is a basketball team". That got me elected.

I proceeded to systematically memorize all the coaches' names very quickly and turn my attention to trash talking to the moms. That's right...I was running smack to a group of pregnant women. The coaches were done and ready to go and the moms were just taking forever so I asked the teacher if we had a time limit on this thing. The coaches were done and ready to WIN!!! AH...Winning...a life lesson that I hope LBMF picked up something about today!!!

We had an interesting mix of characters in the class. We had the frat boy, who's first question was "when will sex be "safe" again?". We had the quiet and shy guys and we had the class clowns (I might fit into this category). Most noticeably, we had the percentage guy! This is the guy who's hand was up anytime the teacher told us about things that could go wrong, asking what's the percentage of cesareans, meconium, induced labors, etc. He must have been a statistician who was setting up a probability matrix on the successful delivery of his child.

Now it was movie time! The first video that we watched was a stand up comedian. While I was hoping for Bill Cosby, we got the love child of Bob Saget and Joe Piscopo. The cheese was flowing from the tv screen as he told jokes about the labor and delivery process. I do admit though...I laughed at a few of them. I'm not even going to talk about our next video which was apparently some sort of socially acceptable porno!

I guess one of the focal points of the class was teaching us to relax, deal with pain and of course...breathe! I've never been a big fan of group participation nor am I big on public displays of affection (PDA's) and that made it difficult to handle much of this portion of the class. I'm definitely not down with sitting in a group and massaging my wife's stomach, back or any other body part. That's just not the place. No problem at home, but not in public.

Furthermore, I really don't want to sit in a group and breathe wooo-chooo, waaaa-hooo or anything else. I understand its importance and am 100% confident that I can handle it when called upon, but I really don't need to publicly practice it 16 times.

Then there's this meditation stuff that they were making us do. I love to relax. Here's how I relax...feet up, Sox on TV, clicker in one hand, Bud Select in the other. That's my "Happy Place". I don't go to my happy place by sitting on the floor listening to Kenny G! I don't get away in my mind. If I spend too much time in there, I get overwhelmed by thoughts of work (I know I'm not alone here!). In looking around the room, I know that of the 12, there were at least 5 other guys that shared my sentiment. Courtney seemed to enjoy it though and so (after some joking around) I decided to behave for her.

I don't want you to think that this was a total waste for me. We did learn quite a few interesting facts and tricks of the trade. We got to play with big balls (I never met a ball I didn't like). We honed in on a motivational statement for Courtney to use to give her strength through the birth. And we chose "when this is done you can have Cold Stone".

One really good thing that we did in the class was a card game where potential consequences from potential decisions that the "coach" (that's me!) might have to make during the labor and delivery process. I knew that Court and I had talked quite a bit about these issues and I really felt that I knew what she wanted, so I was READY to take on this game. First they had us choose the results that we wanted (without input from the moms) and then they gradually told you that you couldn't get your way on more and more of them. My choices echoed Courtney's feelings and I am now confident that we are going into this experience on the same page.

What an experience this is going to be! That is, we have one more class next Saturday. Stay tuned for Courtney's take on today and my thoughts next week.

P.S. The nursery is painted!!!

-Andy