And the answer is ....

Three.
Not 42.
- that was a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference for those of you not in the know.

The question then ....
How many actual birth videos did they plan on showing us in our birthing classes to freak us out?
And last night was the big night. After 4 weeks of breathing and assorted position practicing -- they hit us with the big dog.
Birth videos on a large screen.
Whee.

I mean yes - we have all seen something approximating a birth on TV - anyone who is a cable geek like me has stumbled across one or two on Discovery, National Geographic and the like.
But here it was. Large and in charge.
So we made it through and then at the end of class, the instructor, who is actually quite nice and fairly entertaining -- decided to bring us back from all the physical aspects of the class and focus on the emotional/spiritual aspects of birth.
Great.
Like I need to get in touch and share that sort of thing with 10 perfect strangers. Strangers that the only thing we have in common is that somewhere around the same time last spring all of our eggs decided to firmly plant themselves somewhere in our insides.
So they queue the birth video (this time with 3 new characters -- 3 must be a lucky birth number) and then she turns on the CD.
There is no dialogue. There is no sound -- just a sound track.
So we got to watch all the laboring portions of the video timed out to Because You Love Me by Celine Dion, complete with footage of horribly tuned-in, uber-attentive husbands massaging, rubbing and holding their beloved. And the actual birthing portion of the tape to You Are So Beautiful by Joe Cocker. Do I need to say more?
And yes, my ears were bleeding AND I threw up in my mouth.
I couldn't speak for a good 2-3 minutes after that. Joe just kept looking at me and shaking his head.
The best part -- we have two classes left. I have no IDEA what is in store for us at this point.

Small milestone today. We are officially 8 weeks out from our due date today.
I am going to celebrate by going home and digging up my copy of The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston and putting it on repeat.
Oh wait. I threw that out after 8th grade.
Dammit.