Antenatal class at the community hospital. Midwife and I doing a double act, seeing how we approach things differently to try to do the same impossible thing - prepare people who have never had a baby for the reality of birth and the newborn days.
It was different to my NCT teaching; all in one long morning, such a short time to try to get so much done. But the questions were the same, the ones you can't answer. How long is a labour? How much will it hurt? How much sleep will we get? When will I know why my baby is crying?
If I could answer them honestly I'd make a fortune, but I can't and neither can anyone else. It's one of my ongoing rants that anybody who writes a book or does a TV show which promises that life with a new baby will be predictable, easy, ordered is possibly not telling the whole story.
We had lots of fun, but seeing my teaching "baby" all wrapped up in an NHS stretchy blanket in the hospital crib and comparing its unnatural smoothness to the wonderful reality of the day old baby we saw later on just brought it home to me all the more. I'll keep doing it because I believe passionately in education, including antenatal education, and I'll keep passing a plastic dolly around the group of expectant parents, acknowledging with them that it's not realistic. What else can we do?
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