"WA Birth education classes for regional towns."

I just wanted to let you know how wonderful your program is for both new Mums and new Dads.

I will start by confessing that I am an “older” new Dad. I am having this new baby with my second wife, it is her first pregnancy, and it is IVF also as I have had a vasectomy 30 years ago.

As I am older and highly educated with 3 degrees and a Master’s in law, I am also very cynical, picky and find fault with just about everything I experience in life these days.

So, what I am about to say should be taken through that lens of my life experience and critical cynicism.

My first two children were born 30 years ago at a very large and well-resourced Hospital in Sydney. Back then, as a Dad, I was generally ignored or treated as a nuisance who had little reason to be involved in the birth of my children by medical professionals at all levels. My wife was generally treated as “just another pregnant person” by most medical professionals. Indeed, when we had the baby’s, I was sent from the hospital, as were all Dads, when visiting hours were over. I hated that and still remember those feelings of helplessness and injustice to fathers/families. For those pregnancies in the 90’s, my wife and I gleaned most of our knowledge from a few pregnancy books, but on the whole knew very little abut how it would all happen from before, during and after the birth/hospital experience.

Now 30 years later, and with all of that in mind, I went along to my first class at Karratha Health Campus (a beautiful and new facility), especially to show my wife I was supportive, actively engaged and loving of both her and our yet to be born baby, yet in my own mind I was expecting to be patronised, treated as a person who was there to “tick a box” for WA health and expected to learn absolutely nothing at all. As the course started and we went through the introductions of the facilitator and all of the couples present, I pasted on a happy face, but in my mind I was ready to go through the boring and patronising motions of the material during a long 8 hour day of lectures.

As the day went on, I became increasingly impressed and actively and sincerely engaged, as did my wife. I began to actually learn things that helped both of us look forward to the impending birth, rather than fear it. My wife is a very small Asian lady and I am an average sized Aussy male, accordingly, she has been (up until now) petrified about how this huge baby will get through her tiny birthing canal without serious pain and likely medical intervention. By the end of the day, we were both on an emotional high and are now very much looking forward to the birth (she is 38 weeks now) which could be any day now.

We are also looking forward to the next Saturday course (if we don’t have a baby already) and we are telling all of our friends about this most positive experience.

Thank you and keep up this exceptionally fabulous work,