Back to School

When Michele first went to the GP to have the pregnancy confirmed, she came away with a folder full of paperwork and leaflets. Forms to fill in for child tax credit and when and where to get the baby registered, that sort of thing.

There were also details about the Ante-Natal classes.

Maybe I've watched too many "Carry On" films, but an AN class, to me, conjours up an image of a room full of pregnant ladies lying on the floor, legs akimbo and all breathing heavily. And somewhere amongst them, there's always a man looking uncomfortably out of place.

It was with this image in mind that I accompanied Michele to the first of two AN classes, held at the hospital.


Time for an interlude...

The Royal Sussex County Hospital sits on Eastern Road in Brighton and has served the county for many, many years. The main building, once the hospital in it's entirety, now acts as a classy entrance to the rest of the site. New blocks and buildings have sprung up and filled just about every nook and cranny on the site (and off...), creating a mini city in which it is all too easy to get lost. As I type, they're building a monumentous hospital within a hospital, which will house what used to be the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children (presently in Dyke Road, Brighton).

They're moving the kiddies from a lovely old red-brick site to a huge glass and concrete "Ark" (as in Noah). Hopefully centralising everything will save money in the long run, but it's a shame to see the old building go - especially as I have many memories of being there as a patient, but that's a completely different story.

Back to the RSCH site, and to a building I've yet to mention - the tower block. A huge monolith of white concrete and windows, the tower block holds A&E at it's base and all the maternity wards at it's top.

Level 11 is the pre-natal (or ante-natal) ward, and is where pregnant women "check in" when they think that things are beginning to happen. It's made up of small four-bed wards and private rooms, together with ultrasound scanning rooms and the ante-natal clinic.

Once it's established that the baby is indeed on their way, the patient gets transferred to Level 13 - the delivery ward. This is basically a level of private delivery rooms, together with a birthing pool (for those who want to give birth in a bath), and theatres for carrying out C-sections (Ceasarian sections, also known coloquially as "Ceasars") and other emergency procedures.

After the baby gets born, the patient (and child) are transferred to Level 12, the after-care ward. Again, this is made up of four-bed wards and private rooms, and is for the mother to recover/bond with her child/practice breast feeding etc. before being let loose into the outside world again.

I was born on Level 13, and Mum said that you could feel the tower move when there were strong gusts of wind.

Anyway, back to the class, and Michele and I found ourselves riding the lift in the tower one evening, bemoaning the irony of having to "come back to work". Stepping from the lift, we entered the ante-natal clinic, the location of the classes, and I got my first shock.

Far from being the only Dad there, Carry On-Style, the room was filled with couples, all bearing those looks of pride and sheer terror of impending parenthood. The class was held by one of the Hospital's midwives, and she was a real live-wire. At the end of the first class I was eagerly looking forward to the next, having seen a baby doll shoved through a polo-neck jumper as a simulation of childbirth!

The second lesson was just as mad as the first one, and the midwife had the ladies in a circle in the middle of the room, all leaning forward on chairs. They then all rocked or circled their hips as they found comfortable, to simulate movements they could make to help relieve pain durng the various stages of labour.

I never knew a room full of pregnant women could move so erotically, but the icing on the cake for me was when the midwife (who was not unnattractive) demonstrated the "all over" massage technique on one of her young, nubile, midwife students...

We made many friends there, most just "class-room mates", but we also met people that would become friends in the future. I left the last lesson thinking "Well, this is it - no more classes and no more scans until the birth.... Shit!"

I say "last lesson", but Michele had another class on another day - Breastfeeding. Apparently, one of the Dads turned up to that one, the pervert....