My first NCT experience

Yesterday I went to the first of my NCT (National Childbirth Trust) ante-natal classes. The course itself was fairly pricey which made me go into the whole experience daring it to be value for money - so far the jury is still out. But I can't really judge yet, since I've only been to one class and I have five more to go. And when I say class, I don't mean a 45 minute session, I mean two and a half hours of conversation and bonding. And also a full day six hour Saturday session in a couple of weeks' time which Husbandio has been informed he is coming too as well. So from a time persective it's good value for money!

I'm sure some of you are wondering why I even bothered to sign up for NCT classes since I've been through this childbirth thing once before and should have a vague inkling as to what's going on. It's not really the content of the classes that interests me, it's the ability to get to know local mums with kids the same age as mine. Since we only moved out here a year ago I thought this would not only help to expand our social circle with people we had something in common with, but would also help me to find out about local services for babies and toddlers which will be useful while I'm on maternity leave. I tried to get into one of their refresher classes for second time mums but they were all full, so I ended up on a course of first timers. Slightly annoying, but not much I could do about it.

There were eight of us in the group, and two brought husbands/partners. We did quite a lot of "getting to know you"-type exercises, such as splitting into groups of three and trying to come up with ten things we had in common. Apart from babies. Not as easy as it sounded, but a good ice breaker. We also did some relaxation, unfortunately not on very comfy chairs so the result was that I lost all feeling in my arms and hands. This was because the course leader recommended that we turn our chairs around and sit astride them, resting our arms on the back - this apparently encourages the baby to get into a better position, and is quite important from 34 weeks on. In standard slumpy on the couch positions the baby tends to settle with its back against the mother's back, and if they're in that position when you give birth it's meant to be excruciatingly painful. So, lots of sitting up and straddling the chair for me from now on!

We also discussed where we were having our babies, and to my surprise I was the only one going to Wycombe - some were going to Stoke Mandeville, some to Wexham Park, and one to Watford. I still think Wycombe sounds fine - there was a rumour that the unit was closing but apparently that's not the case, so that's good to know. It's the closest place to us, which for me was the main criteria, since I'm not planning on being in there very long, fingers crossed.

Actually, if those are the only things I learn then it's money well spent. And the people seemed nice too, so it's all looking quite positive so far. And not too hippy happy clappy, which was one fear of mine - although I'm still waiting for the "breast-feeding good, bottle-feeding evil" lecture...!