Ante Natal Class
5 December 2005, 18:58
Warning: graphic descriptions to follow. Don’t worry, I didn’t like writing them either.
Husband and I attended the first of these little gems yesterday. I’m not sure quite what to say about it.
About half an hour into the class, a woman, in the final stage of labour was wheeled into the birthing centre panting like an asthmatic Saint Bernard. The doors closed on the birthing room and 5 minutes later we hear the most unearthly and UNHOLY shrieking I reckon I’ve ever heard. The poor woman sounded like the devil had her hung, drawn and quartered from a telegraph pole.
The 10 of us in the class just looked at each other (terror mounting, well, it was in me anyway). Happily this godforsaken sound lasted only about 10-15 minutes, after which time we were informed that she’d had a baby. Which was just as well, given that we were in a birthing centre.
The midwife then showed videos. 2 of them in fact – both homebirths. The first one, the “Mexican” video featured a mother-of-the-earth type of woman treating childbirth like it was some kind of erotic experience, looking deep into her partner’s eyes, insisting that her pain was like their love BURSTING from her. Pass.
The second was of a dutch woman, with dodgy voice-overs ala the Iron Chef, seemingly in agony with the baby’s head (looking a little too like a shrivelled mussel for comfort) poking out of her fujutsa. I was half-expecting Takeshi Kaga to burst out from behind the curtain with an animated “Let’s get it ON!!!!!” So so pass.
It wasn’t so much the content of the vids, but the looking in on their intimacy that I found too much. Voyeuristic. Impending motherhood is sincerely weird. That’s all I’m gonna say for now. Must. reconcile. inner. weirdness.
So I’m undecided about the whole ante natal class thing. I was right yesterday. I’d rather not know. Honestly.
Permanent Link | - They had the same crappy videos at my antenatal classes, but we were the only ones who chose not to watch them because seriously, I didn’t need to look at someone else’s twat to figure out that something the size of a watermelon was going to come out of a hole the size of a lemon. But I digress. Generally speaking, antenatal classes are a major time waster, with far too much talk about whale sounds and Enya during the birth for my liking. Hmph, obvious isshoos showing here! Good luck.
— Sharon Dec 5, 09:24 PM #
