Tammy and I went to our first baby class tonight. We are taking the 6-week Introduction to Child Birth class at North Memorial. Highlights from the class include…

  • Obligatory wearing of the Empathy Belly by all the men in the class while their pregnant wives instructed them to lay down, roll over, bend down, pick up something, sit. A variety of commands similar to what you would give to any trained puppy. Yes I fully participated as well. Rolling over with 40 pounds strapped to your gut is rather hard. My pleas that I had already formed my own empathy belly over the last few months were met on deaf ears.

  • Instructor asked us to get into small groups and put together our list of top 10 questions. I suggested to put on the list ‘What are we supposed to do when we get home with the kid?!?’ The person taking notes that I was joking. Oh, if only I was. ;-)

  • Required graphic video of a woman delivering a baby. Oh boy. Don’t think I need to add all that much here, particularly don’t need to include any pictures.

  • Found out we were the only couple in the class using a midwife. That surprised me. Maybe it shouldn’t have.

  • Realized we need to get our doula picked soon. Surprised that a handful of people didn’t know what a doula was either.

I feel like I should invite Tammy to my next annual physical just so we can level the field with all this information I’m getting lately.