A Review: Having a baby school day one

The couple entered the room just before 6:30 without high expectations. They were trepidatious of meeting new people and this brought out the father-to-be's most annoying side. The room was far from exciting with chairs in a circle, an old white board and a small table with papers and pens.

The couple were the first sit down and picked seats in the middle facing the front. They would soon realise this placed them in the direct eye-line of the conveyor and was just what the mum-to-be needed to feel uncomfortable. Participation got to write out their own name tags to add some style or flare. The couple made fun of each others' designs in a thinly veiled effort to make themselves feel more comfortable in the new situation.

More couples spilled into the room and took their seats. There was the tall couple with the tiny baby bump, the couple whom we shall assume wore matching white shirts and grey tracksuit pants by accident, the Asian couple and some others. If we spare a moment to stereotype our main couple, we might say the awkward, joke-making couple or.. the couple that teased each other like grade school children. Something like that.

The convenor was super excited, almost too excited. But we must appreciate her excitement, good on her for enjoying a job that she gets to do each night of the week which includes scaring people who have no choice left to back out of their predicament.

She stood at the front and worked hard to make eye contact with everyone, as mentioned earlier, their seat choice meant that our couple got more of this than others. She spoke about what the workshops would contain and we entered into our couple's favourite portion of the night: the getting to know you segment. This meant breaking up the participants into smaller groups so they could introduce one another. The focus of the discussions: tell me something interesting about you. The couple for thankful that they have an interesting fact on hand at all times, they are after all foster carers which is pretty cool!

Once that was over and done with, we discussed labour and that super process. Facts were thrown around such as the average labour taking 14 hours and a newborn needing to be fed every 2-4 hours. Sleep deprivation was touched on and the need for the dads-to-be to be in the kitchen preparing nutritious food for the mum so that she can breastfeed her new bundle of screaming joy.

There were some scared faces and worried sounds from the group at times and some smiles and forced laughs at others. Our couple threw in some jokes to lighten their moods. They remain unsure of just how well the rest of the group took the (at times) inappropriate comments from the father-to-be and pointless one liners from the mother-to-be.

Convener: 4/5 She was a little too excited and held contact with our couple for too long but her excitement got her over the line with 4 stars.

Content: 2/5 this first session was lacking in content and focused on getting to know each other... let's see what next week brings.

Overall rating: 3/5

Baby Shower pics

So, i had written a nice little poem and arranged the photos, but they didn't save. So.... none of that! Just photos.