This week Claire and I attended our last antenatal class before the birth of our first child!

The fifth session was a more of a hands on session than a lecture like the last four have been. Everyone in the class had to learn how to wrap a baby in a wrap a number of different ways and also change a nappy. Wrapping up the toy baby was pretty funny, specifically watching different people in the class essentially tie their baby in a knot – there was quite a bit of laughter.

At this stage we’re meant to know everything that we need to know about having a baby, though for me personally it doesn’t feel like it. I wouldn’t say that I’m completely calm about the whole experience, though I’m not stressed out either. My thinking at this point is that plenty of people before us have had children and survived – statistically speaking that puts us in pretty good shape.

Starting a family is going to be an enormous learning experience and at this point in time, I know I don’t know it all. Not having it all mapped out in your head is part of the experience I think though, changes in priorities and different views and opinions about things. We’ll learn as we go along, making mistakes and hopefully learning how to make less of them in the future.

One piece of information that Alex (the midwife that instructs the Gold Coast antenatal classes we attended) pointed out is that while babies are tiny and helpless, they are also surprisingly resilient – lucky because there’ll be plenty of on the fly learning going on I think!