Picture the scene: you’re eight weeks pregnant with your first baby.

A person is almost fully formed inside your belly.

As beautiful as this is, your body isn’t what it was when you wed.

So many veins have popped up, your breasts look like a road map, your ankles are kankles and your face is tired from lack of getting more than an hour of continual sleep for weeks.

It’s time for your antenatal class, where husbands are invited along, and this week’s topic is breastfeeding.

“Great news,” the leader of the class says cheerfully.

“We have a new mum to show us how it’s done.

“Her baby is three months old and mum is loving her breastfeeding journey.

“And here she is. Please welcome Astrid!”

‘Perfect’ mum showed us how to breastfeed

Cue utter, jaw-dropping disbelief as Astrid floats in and takes her place in a chair in front of eight couples, for Astrid looks as Swedish as her name suggests.

If a casting director for a teen American movie was looking for a stereotypical Swedish young woman for a scene that makes the boys drool, Astrid would be a shoo-in.

Her hair is silky and white-blonde, her scent floral, her stomach flat and her frame slender, complete with a gorgeous little baby.

She gives a sweet smile, loosens her top and the mums-to-be have various reactions.

I (yes, it was a real scene, it happened to me) give a nervous laugh and try to suppress guffawing while wondering if Ant and Dec are about to jump out and shout “Gotcha!”

Another mum-to-be (who’d just been telling us about her piles) glares from Astrid to her husband, who doesn’t know where to look if he values his life.

Astrid breastfed perfectly and, afterwards, we decamped – minus Astrid and teacher – to a nearby beer garden and dissolved into laughter at the absurdity of it all.

I was reminded of this – a scene which happened in Greenwich in London, two weeks before I moved back to Dundee in time for a Ninewells delivery – upon reading The Courier’s story of new antenatal classes in Dundee for dads only.

The charity leading the way is Dads Rock and has been preparing first-time fathers for parenthood in Edinburgh and Glasgow for some time.

There’s an age-old comical depiction of a new dad, just out of the delivery suite, having witnessed the birth of his child – exhausted, like he’s done the hard work.

It strikes me as an unfair characterisation.

I had one heck of an experience with my first birth: 24 hours of contractions starting optimistically in the birthing pool in the midwife labour suite until skin pruned, then an induction, epidural, blood loss, diamorphine, pushing, head appearing, forceps and eventual emergency section – all forgotten as I had a healthy baby.

However, honestly, I think it was more difficult for my husband.

Time – days – passed for me in a haze of pain and drugs at Ninewells, where the staff were heroes.

I was doing something so physical, so primitive, my mind had no time to wander.

Dads-to-be have no clue what to really expect

But the dads in this situation: they watch with no sleep or medication to numb the worry.

Things don’t always go birthing-pool-perfect; they start off hoping for a healthy baby and, hours in, pray their partner comes out OK too.

A general rule of thumb I have is never to talk about personal drama or stories of labour.

A bit like other people’s dreams, they’re most interesting to you.

But also, they can terrify a mum-to-be, afraid of the unknown.

To reassure, even my own slightly traumatic birth was possibly the best experience of my life; the diamorphine is possibly (definitely) to be credited in this.

But often husbands have no clue what to really expect.

Even the best of antenatal classes for both men and women do not prepare for what’s possibly to come.

That Dads Rock focuses entirely on the role fathers will play in the final weeks of pregnancy and the first weeks of parenthood is brilliant, and a few honest scenarios might be covered – like if your wife screams like a banshee and tells you she hates you in the first few weeks of parenthood, she may have a cracked nipple (sorry, but it’s just true) from breastfeeding or be terrified of new emotions and hormones.

They may – without being scared rigid – be told that a dream birth plan doesn’t always unfold, and to pack plenty of wine gums for you both.

And they may cover the way dads might feel after birth, but are possibly too embarrassed to talk about – because they are told this one’s not about them.

Dads Rock can only help.

It may even save relationships – just so long as Astrid is not a starring guest.

© The Courier