Scary movie

On Thursday and Friday, Erin and I attended parents' classes at St Thomas Hospital. The first was a full day about the birth, and the second was all about what happens when the little one arrives.

We were joined by other expectant women in various state of bump. There was about forty of us in the room. Around half of the women were joined by their partners who were in a various state of anxiety.

It was scary, no traumatic and most of it will not be written down here. Words like Pre-eclampsia, Gestational Diabetes, and Hypoglycemia were just the tip of the iceberg.

We were put in groups and met new people who were due around the same time as us, but as soon as we were, we had to discuss pain relief - Gas and Air, Water Birth, TENs Machine and/or Epidural.

After we went through those it was on to a ranting lecture on when to come into the hospital and when Established Labor is. They are both at the same time - after the cervix is 4 cm dilated, apparently. When the waters break we can call them, and should call them, but should not at any costs go to hospital straight away. We were told in no uncertain terms that we would be sent back home if we were there too early.

Lecture over, onto a video.  And if we thought what we were being told was scary, then this was taken to a whole new level.

I think the director and editor of the video may have been a young James Wan who went on to work on the Saw films. It was supposed be a real-life look at labor. It turned out to be a harrowing 5 minutes of a woman screaming without hearing her natural sound, only panpipes in the background. And anyone who knows the sound of panpipes knows that's scarier than screaming. Both together were truly X-rated. If it wasn't specifically designed for them, you'd advise pregnant women not to watch it.

Then came lunch. Surprisingly, we weren't very hungry.

Things got better after lunch.  And towards the end we were taken to see the wards we would be on if we were given Home from Home care.  Single wards over looking the Houses of Parliament.  

This was very cool and something to look forward(ish) to but Erin and I still didn't sleep very well on Thursday after what we had learned.  I wonder why.