Thur Sept 14, 2000 - 2pm

We were all huddled in this room which was rather hot and humid. Lots of pregnant women (about 7 months I think) with their husbands who looked thoroughly miserable, you could so tell that they really wanted to be in the pub watching the football or out with the lads playing cards...basically whatever New Jersey blokes do with their bloke friend.  Anyway they looked fed up, the wives looked nervous, expectant, pissed off themselves.  I on the other hand, along with Susan was very giggly, which Ty didn't seem to mind, in fact she was laughing along herself.  Well you had to as it was SO serious.....

OK so this woman call Juana was taking the class, a small prissy looking woman with a screwed up mouth, small head, short with pear shaped hips.  A usual all round American woman I guess.  Anyway she sounded like she knew what she was doing, especially when she pulled out these poster size pictures of a woman sideways so that you could see all her insides...yuck it was disgusting!!  Anyway after finally establishing where the pee pee hole, the vagina hole AND the anal hole was I was rather relieved.  You see for years as a child I thought babies came out of your arsehole and used to have nightmares of newborn babies sitting around hospital rooms covered in shit.....

Actually once I got over the shock of the diagrams (good god woman there only pictures) I found them fascinating, apart from the long stringy things that grow inside a woman's breast once pregnant to produce milk, they looked like hemorrhoids inside your tits...nasty!!

After a short 10 minute break we re-entered the room to talk about the labor period.  Now this is where it gets complicated.

You see they have what's known as 4 stages, within these stages are Phases.

So basically the 1st Phase is when the dilation goes from 1 to 3cm, if this happens and your in the hospital they'll basically kick your arse out and send you back home, and laugh at you because your a wuss.

The 2nd Phase is when the dilation is now 4 to 7cm open, and the contractions are occurring every 10 to 15 minutes for approx 30 to 45 seconds.  And yes I think they'll let you in the hospital now as I'm sure it's rather uncomfortable.

Then there's the 2nd Stage which is the Transition stage where dilation is now 7 to 10cm, which is otherwise known as the INTENSE stage, i.e.. it really fucking hurts and you hate your husband for doing this to you, get this godamn baby out of me now...you get the picture??  The contractions occur every 3 - 5 minutes for approx 1 minute I think.  (I'll have to get the notes off Ty, I was a bit overwhelmed at this point and lost my sense of hearing, speech, eyesight!!)

The 3rd Stage is the birth stage where...guess what? you give birth, with every last breath you have left....

The 4th Stage I think is get dressed and down the pub for a large Gin and Tonic.....well I think that's what she said??

So I''m sat there in this room watching her writing all this information on a board, then using a plastic baby to demonstrate the birthing which she used with a model of a pelvis.  So the next thing is, she's shoving this babies head through this pelvis, which by the way is a very very small area to get a kids head through, but did you know that the too soft parts on babies heads are there for a reason.  Basically the bones haven't formed properly there yet, because the head part pretty much turns into a cone shape as it twist through the pelvis and ALSO during this time the tender bones in the babies head will sometimes cross over each other, therefore making it possible for the baby to come through....GO FUCKING FIGURE, how fascinating is that?  Although sometimes even that doesn't work, so that's when a C Section is necessary...cut her and get the kid out pronto!!

OK I'm sorry I'll stop now, but honestly it's fascinating, not sure whether or not it's made ME want to have a kid sometime soon but lots of other people seem to do it.  There were some scary looking faces after that class, it was a funny sight.  The funniest though was a particular woman who must work in some beauty parlour or something, she had enough make-up on to remodel a full sized whale......aaargh!!

After Ty dropped me off this morning and went straight to the gym and for the first time ran for 40 minutes and hardly even glanced at the tv monitor, all I could think about was that bloody class night last, I'll never forget it now....

OK must dash to work and then off to Harvest in the Square, basically all the local businesses around Union Square with free booze and food all for $70...better take a doggy bag for Morpheus....

later...............

p.s. I've got some get white trailer park jokes that my mate SFNB sent me, I'll put them on tomorrow...promise!!