Had the first of my NCT classes today.

Had I not already had a birth preparation class in the form of a Hypnobirthing course, I think I'd be at a bit of a loss. They give you lots of information and show you lots of pictures, and then reinforce it with a big dose of "it's going to hurt a lot", and a lot of our next class is going to be in reference to pain relief. Oh joy.

I really wanted to stand up at a couple of points in the class and say "it doesn't have to hurt! It doesn't have to be like this!" But I think it would have been wasted on some of them. Teacher included.

Things like saying that the midwives will only pay attention to you when you go in if you make a lot of fuss, and hop about and writhe in agony, and whinge and complain and make like you're in a "TV" version of giving birth.

It would be a pretty shit episode of casualty if the labouring woman lay there deeply relaxed, breathing through her contractions, and didn't whinge, scream, shout, or create a fuss, but just lay there, breathing, and suddenly she had a baby. I've seen it - I've been watching a lot of hypnobirthing videos and none of them have the yelling etc. Just peaceful, calm, relaxed atmospheres, in which women give birth with virtually no pain, and have bright alert and happy babies.

Reading this back I sound like a right old hippy. I just can't put into words how unneccessary I believe all of the drama to be. And I hope I can prove it, whenever the big day arrives.

I reserve the right to eat my own hat though.

Still - I did learn some things today. like about colic, how babies turn during labour, and the people we met seem lovely.

I shall focus on the positives.