Fathers-in-training by Josh

Monday night I went to a class at Ministry St. Claire’s
called Fathers-in-training.  It is a
class that fathers take without the mother of their soon to be born child.  This gives the guys a chance to discuss many
things that they may not feel ok about saying them in front of the expecting mothers.

I have to tell you that this class was great.  It covered three areas; how to support the
mother of your child, how to take care of a newborn, and how to take care of
yourself.  Some of the information was
review from other classes Nikki and I have taken, but this teacher put a
different spin on things from the point of view of the male during the pregnancy,
birth, and after.  Our teacher was
great.  He has 5 children himself and
gave us a real world view of how things will be and things we could run into.

One of the most importing things I took away from the class
was how us men have to realize that we are not the center of attention during
this process.  The teacher used an example
of a Nascar driver and pit crew chief. 
Our wife is driving the car; everything is happening to her.  We are her pit crew chief.  We are there to support her and help her get
through this the best and easiest way possible. 
It is hard for some men to let go and play the supporting role.  It almost goes against our DNA.  But it is an important part to play during
this process, and we need to step up the give it our best.

There are many other things I learned at this class that I
can’t fit into this blog entry.   I will
have to convince Nikki to let me add some more in a future blog.  But I do want to pass along a big thanks to
Ministry Health Care for providing soon to be fathers with this opportunity to
learn with other fathers to be.  It was informative
and fun.