NCT Class Reunion

Yesterday, Claire, Jack and I went to meet the other new parents from the same National Childbirth Trust (NCT) class that we attended in December 2008, in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

John, Emma and their new son Matthew played host to us and three other couples:

• Chris, Julie and baby George
• Becca, Matt and baby James
• Ben, Clare and baby Evan

Nicky, the NCT teacher, and her two girls also came along, which was really nice as her two girls love being around babies. It was at the end of the NCT classes in December that Nicky helped us to arrange a meet-up, and it was yesterday.

As I said in an earlier blog post, I think that Claire and I would be totally lost without the help of the NCT antenatal classes that we went to, as the NHS classes were a total waste of time, as nothing significant was learnt there at all.

When we first got there, all four of the guest babies were asleep and still pinned into their car seats, which was really weird, but one-by-one they all started to wake up. Chris and I said we should have a quick wager on which of our babies would cry first, but luckily (or should I say unluckily) for me, Jack started first! Great, thanks lad. I was a little worried that they'd all set each other off and room would be filled with crying poo-machines on top volume, but to be fair to them, none of them really cried for much, and there was only really ever one going at once, which was a relief!

It was really weird to see everyone all with their new babies – we had spent quite a bit of time together at the classes before Christmas, but at the time, all the women were carrying a heavy bump in front of them. This time, they are all holding their very own little baby, all aged within weeks of Jack, but connecting the two now seems a little odd, if that makes sense?

As it turned out, all of the babies were boys; the odds of which Matt had worked out as being 1 in 32. I say that, as some of the new parents in the group chose not to know whether they were expecting a boy or a girl, and you would expect at least one couple in five to deviate from the norm.

Emma and John had served up enough food for the British Army to polish off after we had finished, which was really good of them.

We had to leave early, as we made the mistake of only having packed one bottle of 'booby-juice' for Jack and so had to make the dash home before he started to get grumpy about not having it, but before we left, someone suggested a group photo of the babies together. So, we all piled the five babies on the sofa, allowing everyone to take photos of them.

You know that scene in the opening of the movie ‘The Matrix’ where Trinity jumps up in the air and before she kicks the police officer in the chest, the camera pans around her in ‘bullet time’..? Well, I reckon we could easily recreate that style of cinematography, but with some much slow-moving babies...

People I speak to at work are a little dubious about the NCT-style of classes, in that there's the underlying aim in making friends out of your classmates, but I personally don't see the problem with this. People who haven't had children aren't really interested in the gory and the gooey stuff about babies - I know, because up until very recently, that was me. But on the other side of the coin, people who have had children want to tell you about their babies experiences, etc etc. (Pretty much what I'm doing here on this blog really.) But the guys and gals at the NCT class seem to fall into a slightly different category to that in my view, as we all met before our lives 'changed considerably' and we've gone through the same process, albeit slightly different routes, but achieved the same outcome, namely, a sprog. So, I'm glad that we went to the classes and learnt about babies; I'm glad that we have met these people as they're all very interesting people anyway, aside from the whole baby thing; and I'm glad we agreed on meeting up like this, as we've got a significant part of lives in common. If only Chris would arrange a dad's drink...