Back to School

Cat and I attended our first antenatal class today. At 10.30am about a dozen nervous looking first-time parents-to-be shuffled into the room and sat down - as far away as possible from the midwife, well until the only seats left were those right next to her. Of course since we were late, we sat right next to her.
Her, was a midwife who spoke in plain terms the various things to expect during labour. It seems that no mater how much you read inbooks or listen from anecdotal stories, hearing the 'facts' about labour and birth from a woman who does this for a living is quite stark. Cat and I left the class with a strange feeling of, how can I put it nicely, I can't - we started shitting ourselves!
Maybe we were living in LaLa Land but it seems Cat and I were kind of mentally putting off thinking about the actual birth process. We often talk about what it's like to have a baby and how we should buy this and that, but for the past 7 months, the birth bit was deep in the denial part of our brains. It seems we were not alone in this as a casual chat to some of the others who attended showed up similar feelings. But, now that we were firmly brought forward to reality, we realised tat we really should start thinking about the birth process now. ie what pain relief to go for, whether a birthing pool is a good idea (it is) and what items to bring to the ward.
During the class, we were given a tour of the birthing unit. It was quiet, for a change, and very clean and functional. What was striking was that the midwife said that a low-risk normal birth means the mother gets dismissed after just six hours from birth. In the old days they kept you in for days! These days, I guess there is always another person to fill your slot.
Since we were both on a weird reality check frame of mind, we both headed straight for Mothercare and immediately started investigating prams. Of course Cat homed in straight away on the very expensive 3-1 travel stroller made by Italian firm Inglesina. Not as posh as a Quinny, but pretty up there. I have managed to persuade her that buying one off Ebay may help shave off a few pounds. We'll see.
A couple of things the midwife did say. One, that although labour and birth is painful, it is only one day in your whole life. The other thing we noted, and what probably sparked off our reality check, was that contractions could begin as early as 37 weeks. Since Cat is already 30 weeks, that really is a very short space of time away.