Hug your mother

Cora and I spent about 12 hours in child birth classes this weekend and after that experience I really think it's important for each and every person who reads this to go hug your mother if you can.

Like wow does this whole process not seem like fun at all for the mom. There were a couple times the instructor would tell us something and I would turn to Cora and just say "I'm sorry for doing this to you". I completely understand why there is a mothers day now, in fact there should probably be two. I'm not exactly sure how to properly describe how much I appreciate Cora for all of this. I've written about 4 paragraphs worth of sentences trying to make a joke or being sappy and serious and none of it seems to work right so I'll just move on :)

Notes from birthing land
So 31 weeks in and apparently I am already an absentee father. The first thing we did was go around the room and introduce ourselves and tell what we liked most about pregnancy. And like every father in that room was like "I like talking to the child in the womb" and I thought to myself "crap. I didn't know I was supposed to be doing that". But really how does that work? Like do you just get down there and start talking? is that awkward for the mother??

The class also underscored why having a child is so special. I think sometimes I have taken that for granted because of how it happened for Cora and I. We didn't try, we really weren't planning on it so early and at times it's hard to see it as the blessing that it is. One couple in the class shared that they had been trying for 10 years to have a baby. The wife said she had had 7 miscarriages and so making it to 12 weeks was the happiest thing she could have asked for. It's easy to lose sight of how special that child is when you're not trying for it. So basically it made me feel like a big jerk.


I thought we were going to get off easy with the whole watching of child births thing. Like really I have absolutely no desire to see a baby come out of another woman's area. No offense to any other woman or anything, but it's just is one of those things that I could do with out. So I thought this class was going to be nothing but video's of graphic child birth. When the first half of the class went by and there wasn't anything really graphic, I was happy, when the next part passed with out anything, I was super happy. And so I thought we had gotten off easy, so guess what the last thing we did was? watch a video that was nothing but deliveries.

Funny moments
I can't tell if the teacher liked me or didn't like me. We did a "mixer" where she would tape terms to our backs and someone else had to give us clues and we guess would it is. Of course my terms was the only term in the class that had anus in the definition. Afterwards we were supposed to read it to the class and it took just about every once of my will power not to giggle when I said anus. I'm pretty sure that was a fatherhood test that she was going me ... and I almost failed it.

I wish I would have brought a camera with me. At one point we were practicing birthing positions, and one of them was to lay on your side with your leg up in the air. And the instructor, bless her soul, had everyone in the class including the dads on the ground in bean bags on their sides with their leg up in the air. I assure you that it was a sight to behold.