The 24 hours of Lemaze

Kind of like the 24 hours of LeMans in auto racing, except for baby classes and this was only 9 hours.

We picked this weekend several months ago to go to "prepared childbirth class" because our friends Jason and Kristy were hoping that basketball season would go long and they'd be state class "A" basketball champions (mission accomplished) and I would be done with my project for work in Wisconsin, (mission in progress), but we wanted to go to class together.

To say the least, the week and weekend have been a hectic time, late nights and early mornings during the week and on Saturday, then 4 1/2 hours of classes both days this weekend.

I empathize with instructors because they know the material, they're qualified and try hard to get class participation. Kind of like what I'll be trying to do all next week with maybe the same success level.

I don't think people realize the magnitude of what you're preparing for because most in the class had waning interest in what she was presenting. Yeah, you had the gamut of couples at the class: the disinterested couple, the couple that asks every question they can think of, the couple that thinks they know everything...... and then you have Scott and Katie and Jason and Kristy.

Kristy and Katie set some ground rules for the weekend, which we ignored, not that we were disruptive in class (or at least to the point that she would kick us out), but we had fun with it. I mean, if you have to sit on metal chairs for 9 hours, you might as well have fun with it, not? The first few hours on Saturday provided the both of us enough material to make each other giggle and also get an occasional smile out of Katie and Kristy, but it was when they started showing the films that things took a turn for the worse.

"Halloween", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Saw"..... those movies are like "Pinocchio". I'm not going any further than this with the details of them, but they could charge $7.00 a seat to one of those movies and have provide psychologists with patients for several months following.

We got a reprieve early in the session today when the instructor announced that it was time for another massage. Katie tried to get in her "receive massage" position, but then she told us that the pregnant ladies would be the massager, not the massagee. This elicited a fist bump with me and Jason. My hands were getting tired.

4 hours later and with jaws dropped, we left, but with a renewed enthusiasm that we'd soon be bringing a baby into the world, which is pretty cool. I think the things I took from the class are that, nobody is the same, labor will be interesting, there's a lot of things that you can try during labor and I will be scared stiff by much of it.

On the home front, we had put a roast in the crock pot this morning before we left. It was a pork roast. We're both much more fond of beef roasts, although I think the hot pork sandwiches are going to be killer this week for her.

I'm off to Wisconsin in the morning, not looking forward to being away this close to go time, but it has to be done.