This week our antenatal class introduced us to pain. The word on the street is, and it came as no real surprise, that giving birth hurts a bit.
The good news is there is a range of drugs on offer to assist the lady with said pain. There’s the trusty gas and air; many women reassure me that this does ‘absolutely nothing’, which is encouraging. On the other end of the scale there’s the epidural, which sounds daunting, to say the least, but does take away the pain. Being the engaged husband I am, I was keen to find out what I can do to help. The truth is, not much. The midwife showed us a massage technique, which apparently helps, but I am not entirely convinced. I guess we’ll find out.
I’ve enjoyed some time off work this week and Faith and I took the time to do a bit of baby-related shopping. Turns out Asda are doing a baby supplies sale, so off we went. The particular Asda we visited is as big as the sun. By the time we found the baby stuff somewhere in the middle of the store, my energy levels were low and I was starting to think I should have brought refreshments. People have told us that we will need plenty of nappies so we bought a box of 100. Going hand-in-hand with the nappies, we got a ‘buttload’ of wipes… for his butt. We also got a bottle steriliser, which I’m sure will be useful at some point. I think we both felt a bit out of our depth.
So the fear that was brought on by all the talk of pain at the antenatal class was somewhat eased by a little retail therapy. I’m sure that nappies might not be cute after you’ve changed your baby for the 20th time that day, but right now just looking at a box of 100 tiny nappies fills me with excitement at the prospect of meeting my son.
