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Sarah and I had our first parenting class last night. It was good. Classes are held at the hospital where we’ll be delivering, and the instructor is a nurse in the delivery area of the same hospital.

She’s pretty straight forward with the information – like, yes ladies, it’s going to hurt to some degree, even with medication. We also got some good tips on what to bring to the hospital, like swim trunks. Yes, swim trunks. See, all of the rooms have walk-in showers. Warm showers/baths releave stress and pain. If mom is in shower, coach is in shower. Nurses don’t need to see coach naked.

Here are a couple of interesting things I noticed about the class:

There are 11 couples. We are the only couple that doesn’t know the gender of our baby. Out of the other 10, I believe they are expecting 6 girls, 4 boys.

The instructor placed 11 numbered squares on the floor, ranging from -5 (all natural childbirth, no drugs) to 0 (I’ve never done this before and really have no idea) to +5 (dope me up now!). Three couples chose for the range of “I’d like to do it naturally, but I’m a realist and may need some pain meds.” The other 8 choose “I want medication, most likely an epidural.” And, go figure, the instructor informed us that about 70% of deliveries at our hospital use epidurals.