Why choosing the right antenatal class is crucial to your wellbeing

I did not choose the right antenatal class.

We chose to pay for an antenatal class face-to-face in our area. It had good reviews and the person running it had been doing it for years. It was expensive and promised to be everything we needed for the birth of our baby. 

For the entire four sessions, we focused on pregnancy and birth. And yes - birth is the next big hurdle and feels like an immense part of the whole having-a-baby thing and it absolutely is! But looking back now, that 18 hours of labour was a tiny portion of what the transition to motherhood actually comes with. I had this overwhelming feeling a few days after birth - now what? 

In hindsight, what was missing from that antenatal class was: mum, motherhood, and the fourth trimester. And I didn’t realise how crucial that would be.

Flashforward to eight weeks postpartum - I sat on my couch with my crying baby, trying to latch her. My water bottle was empty, my husband at work, my phone out of reach, emotions raging, my boobs full, alongside my heart, but I started cursing that antenatal class thinking - WHY WAS I NOT PREPARED FOR THIS? I felt alone, confused, like I was failing, out of control, and to be honest I was left thinking - maybe this motherhood business wasn’t for me? 

There are so many things that happen postpartum that I was not prepared for. They say you can never really prepare for what the reality will be like once you have your baby, but I seemed to think  I would be able to figure it out and problem solve like I did in my life pre-baby. But what I realised is that mothering requires a whole new set of skills. Looking back now, the first skill I needed was self compassion and how to identify and regulate my emotions. I was lost. Lost in a journey I didn’t even know how to put into words. 

So I did what I do best - I started looking for the answers. I needed to know that what I was experiencing must be normal, that I can’t be the only new mum that is feeling this way - can I? When I came across the word matrescence and started reading more (with baby asleep in my arms or midnight feed), I actually felt understood. That’s the vocabulary I needed to explain what was happening to me emotionally and physically. From there, I started building my toolkit - not the right dummy, or the right bottle, the right white noise machine, the right TOG for the sleep sack - the toolkit for me, for motherhood, for matrescence. 

So when you are looking for an antenatal class, look for one that prepares you for birth, baby AND motherhood. One that looks at the transitions you go through from relationships, identity, mental health, emotional journey, infant sleep, how to make decisions, how to deal with information overload and the rest! Because when you are in the thick of it, you will be able to (and NEED TO draw on that toolkit for support, from within. Maybe you will be lucky enough to have external support, but the reality is YOU are likely the one doing it and going through it internally in those early days and from my experience it is a pretty massive shift to go through without a liferaft.

If I could do it again I’d look for the word matrescence and choose an antenatal class that is going to help prepare me for THAT journey as well as birth and baby.