Crazy Old Women Should Not Teach Birthing Classes

Let me introduce you to Jane.

Jane teaches our Childbirth Preparation. She teaches three sessions a week for two hours as session.

She has been teaching these classes since 1977, before Suellen and I were born.

Jane is also a retired nurse. She assisted with her first delivery in 1947, the year my mother was born. My mother is 61 years old. I'm guessing that this makes Jane somewhere in her mid-eighties.

Jane talks a lot. I think she's afraid of silence. I think she thinks she's making people feel comfortable. She's not. I'm pretty sure every one thinks she's crazy.

While sitting in Jane's class tonight I thought of a poem by W.B. Yeats called "Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop". I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the class thinking that. Here's the poem:

"Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop"

1933

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
"Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty."

"Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul," I cried.
"My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

"A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not be rent."

Now, admittedly, I didn't really remember much beyond the title while sitting in class, but I did remember it was about some crazy chick named Jane. However, when I looked up the poem at home, I found it even more fitting.

As you may notice in the poem the bishop warns Jane that perhaps she hasn't been living the most pure or chaste existence, and perhaps she should start thinking about the fate of her soul. Jane, having a sorted sexual past, is quick to retort that the very acts the bishop is reprimanding her for are in fact the culminating point of a love between two people. Without boring you with an English lesson, it's a poem about sex.

Which is good. Because sex is all retired nurse turned childbirth educator Jane wants to talk about.

Allow me to give you a few choice Jane quotes:

"Mothers you must know about spreading your legs apart. It's how you got pregnant in the first place."

"Dads don't you worry about her being as big as the Grand Canyon forever. It'll change back. I know it's a concern."

"If you are doing dishes, you can still practice the pelvic tilt (here is when she begins thrusting against the table). Just do what got you pregnant in the first place."

Eww. And I have three more weeks of this.