National Awkwardness Trust

I've mentioned before the NCT - (National Childhood Trust) a charity that runs in England with the aims to give new mothers information and support during their first pregnancy. You pay £300 to essentially learn about episiotomys (traumatising) the stages of labour (endless) and carry around dolls that you pretend to breastfeed and bathe (weird) - but the true cost of the course goes to forming these 'baby mama communities' you're supposed to go out into the world & form friendships with these women who you have spent a total of 16 hours with...

I can work with someone for 18 months and not have ever had a lunch with them, however I am now expected to meet up with these ladies every friday and go for a coffee and then a romantic walk through the park.

I understand that having children means a whole new world of socialising with people you might not normally hang out with, but doing so when you don't even have children yet is just weird.

So of course I have missed the past 2 catch ups. For one they meet at 10am in the park, who does that? aren't we all still in our PJ's at 10am? Which is why I need to form a new group. The Mutiny Group.

In the Mutiny Group we meet at midday. We don't even have to meet at the park. We could meet at the cafe which is 5 minutes from our houses. We could stay at home and skype each other in our braless wonderlessness. To be honest I think a lot of people were into joining Mutiny Group. It only takes one person to stand up to the 'organiser' of the group (the one who volunteered for the organiser position whilst the rest of of us were thinkin 'aint nobody got time for that') and goddamit if the volunteer organiser isn't one of those over achieving women who is super nice, has perfect hair, is an architect and runs marathons in her spare time. She probably wanted to do park meets at 8am but thought she'd let us slackers sleep in a bit.

There's just something awkward about forcing 8 women and their respective partners to be friends immediately. Maybe i'm too suspicious. Maybe I don't play well with others. Maybe I need to set my alarm earlier.

I think the NCT is a good thing - London is a transient city, there isn't one person in the group who is from London. You got Americans, Chinese, Dutch, French, and Aussies. I guess the difference to back home is that you'd form your community out of friends with children, and family members. All we have in London is each other - each weird freak who you'd probably never speak to in normal circumstances, however being knocked up has put us all on the same page.

me and my preggers besties. we swap vagina stories despite knowing each other less than a month.

Can't wait for the awkwardness of bringing our newborns to the park on our romantic walks. If I can get out of bed that is.