Last night the party moved to the IWK, and our small clique of politely-nodding, awkwardly-chatting pregger teams from Cole Harbour merged with those from miscellaneous other pre-natal sessions from around the HRM. We are now some 20-strong - all nervous and waddling and coddling and peeing. The class now comprises a few more classy professional types, still dressed in their button-down work outfits and shiny shoes and watches, who sat in stark contract to the suburban contingent - the blue-collar, tattooed, goateed, scruffy, dress like we're still in high school team (my team - the fashion sense of professional engineers is deceiving). Actually, some of us might actually still be in high school.
Last night I learned lots of new terms. Learned about the labour timeline. Triggers of when to come in to the hospital. What to bring to the hospital. What not to bring to the hospital. Who to bring to the hospital. And methods of distracting the near-mom from the monumental discomfort of a mini human head slamming repeatedly against her "effacing" cervix. Our new instructor is an impossibly skinny, impossibly tall, young nurse whom we suspect has yet to have a child, but works full-time in the early labour unit so she gets a pass - even when telling the soon-to-be mothers about the awesome pain and how to bear through it.
The piece du resistance of the whole evening was a twenty minute video showing the labour process of an actual couple (who, as is the trend in all such instructional pre-natal videos, are borderline obese and intentionally unattractive). Neither glamorous nor particularly fear-mongering, the video featured lots of groaning and panting and inspirational speeches from the nurses, and at least one outburst from the mother, directed at her incessantly yammering husband - "Shut up Chris, I don't want to hear your stories while I'm having a contraction!". Funny. True. Cliche.
Actually being in the hospital, as opposed to a big red sports facility in the suburbs, made things a little more real. Most days, even though we're 29 weeks along, the event still seems quite distant - but visiting the hospital and talking about practical pain- and time-killing methods and smelling the hospital smells and eating in the hospital cafeteria and parking in the towering hospital parking lots, reminds you that things are moving along faster than you care to think. Time flies when you're distracted by the myriad of home renos required to house your unborn.
Ticktickticktick...
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