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Magma chamber
I am sitting here like some human volcano. Every so often there is a small outburst, the tremors before the eruption, whilst deep inside the magma chamber is full of seething, viscous, overheated molton rock and gases gradually building and waiting for its cue to burst forth and cause destruction. No, I havn't got a GI upset, I have just receievd little snippets if information about changes that are to be made to the maternity services. At the moment they are just heresay, before I allow my fury to manifest itself I have to make sure they are not an exagerration, if what I am hearing is true then the local maternity services, and the people who use them, are in deeper do-do then I had ever predicted.
In my own personal,little happiness bubble all is well. Yesterday daughter, Jack and Isabel came over and we all went to music club where Izzy was cooed over, and daggers were thrown at daughter for being so 'in control' and mobile 4 days after having a baby. Today I am going over there to do the heel prick blood test and re-weigh baby, lucky Izzy, lucky Nanny!
Amazing memory
I know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing and what I was wearing exactly 30 years ago, I was in labour with my eldest daughter. I would not count the 22 hours it took to bring her into the world as the most enjoyable time I have ever experienced, in fact to describe them as my own personal hell would be a pretty fair description, but that's just about what I expected. I suppose I must be a bit of a pragmatist, I accepted that labour was going to be hard work, why call it that if it was not about to be an out of the ordinary exertion, and anyone with any brain would realise that encouraging a miniature human being to descend down a close-fitting muscular tube and through a resistant opening was going to take some doing. Being induced didn't really help to ease the whole experience, a green-soap enema and 'through-shave' were enough to cause knees to shake but the breaking of waters with no prior preparation of an innocent cervix was a protracted, invasive highly uncomfortable experience. Attitudes were very different though, no one felt they owed you any explanation of what, or why, they did anything, and you would certainly not be consulted about your wishes by the midwives, and the Doctors made every decision. That is how things were and that was what you expected. About 5 hours into labour the midwife came in and made dire predictions about how poorly my labour would progress due to baby's position and advised me to have an epidural, in those days they were something offered to you as a last resort, but I refused and as a result I couldn't get any pain-relief until she went off-shift. As soon as she had left another midwife came and gave me my pethidine, nowadays the first midwife would have been in trouble as I would have complained, then it was just accepted as how powerless you are in hospital but for me there was also a sub-text affecting how I behaved. It goes something along the lines of...'when you are giving birth you are not ill, the pain does not indicate that there is anything wrong, in fact having the pain is the right thing, it is your body working as it should, it is normal and why should I expect the midwives and doctors to cosset me, treat me as an invalid and control my symptoms when there is nothing wrong with me?' Pretty hard line really, I've adapted my attitudes over the years, times and people change but I do still believe that if we viewed pregnancy and childbirth as less a medical 'issue', something to be controlled and more a normal process we would have less problems associated with it and fewer complaints about unfulfilled expectations. I have a feeling we are going so far now trying to dangle hopes of wonderful, spiritual experiences that we are in danger of causing women more emotional trauma when the reality of childbirth happens and it's basic, raw and painful. I described the birth of my eldest as 'my own personal hell', it was but that is just about what I expected. I would have liked to avoid repeating that experience, but I wasn't left psychologically scarred, I chalked it up to experience, vowed never to return to that hospital, and got on with caring for my healthy newborn baby girl.
Yes, today Amy's Mummy is 30 years old and she feels depressed about it, how does she think I feel, I now have a middle-aged daughter. Tonight Amy is staying with us while her Mummy and Daddy celebrate, and tomorrow there is a summoning of the clan and a family meal.
Serendipity
This morning I received a phone call from sister-in-law asking if we fancied going to see Spamalot tonight and stay in a London hotel. Her Mother-in-law has been knocked down by a car and they are going up to Shrewsbury to see her in hospital, she's suffered a couple of broken bones but when you are 84 years old that can be pretty serious so they want to see her today, and they had the theatre/hotel booked and paid for. Well, its daughters birthday today and her partner had not arranged anything, difficult time for them financially at the moment, so I immediately thought of them.
Oh, blow, just received a call from daughter, the theatre will not transfer the tickets, even though they have the booking number etc. they physically want the tickets and since sister-in-law is in Kent, and about to travel up to Shrewsbury, that is impossible and now the hotel are making things difficult, looks like £250 is going down the drain and daughter will not have a special birthday after all, so much for serendipity and every cloud having a silver lining. My gut reaction is to picket the theatre, who says I'm an overprotective, clucky Mother?
Tradition
In the end it all worked out, serendipidy at its best. Amy stayed with Nanny and Grandad and excelled herself, she slept until 9.15. Grandad and Amy have gone up to the park now and left me at home to sort things out, takes me back a few years to when ours were little and Sunday mornings were Daddy and children out and about, Mummy enjoying being able to get on with bits and bobs without little people needing things. Daughter phoned to check that Amy was okay, they enjoyed Spamalot, and are now at Covent Garden having a leisurely breakfast. 2pm will see us all descending on a local pub restaurant, even step-grandson has asked to come, quite an honour, a 12 year old wanting to come out with the tribe, 8 adults, 1 pre-pubescent, 2 toddlers and a baby, I feel quite sorry for all the other patrons.
Isabel is a little cutie, when I weighed her on Friday, day 5, she had put on an ounce and a half, she is now 7lbs, her Mummy was delighted, she was even good when I did her heel prick blood test. Jack is being wonderful, so far there have been no shows of jealousy, just every time he leaves the room he has to kiss her on the forehead. Daughter shows no sign of having just had a baby, she is back being Jack's doting Mummy, it's just that she has a small bundle cradled in her arms as she says 'It all happened so quickly I don't feel as if I've just given birth'. I suppose that if you have a quick homebirth and no stitches the only real change has been that there is now a new baby, there was never the going into hospital, giving birth, waiting to come home, and then the arriving home. I certainly think it helped if you have a toddler around, he didn't miss Mummy and Daddy or have to stay with anyone or anyone stay with him, there was only one change in his life, and that was his baby sister.
Non-negotiable
Today was the meeting with the Head of Midwifery to discuss 'options for rotation', misleading topic really because there were no 'options' as she started off the meeting with ' You are being moved to *****, and it's non-negotiable'. Job-share partner and I greeted this with a stunned silence, even our line manager looked rather taken aback. We pointed out HOM that this move was totally to our disadvantage, it would double our travelling time, much of which would be spent in heavy traffic and this move was solely for the benefit of a midwife whose husbands job was moving, so she would get her needs fulfilled whilst ours would be totally ignored. No avail, she was firm in her decision, non-negotiable. We came out of there shocked and saddened. As community midwives you build up relationships, with the women, the G.P's and other professionals. We have been covering our area for 7 years now, we are well known, we are caring now for women through their third pregnancy with us as their midwives, it is really sad to be saying goodbye, particularly when we don't want to leave them. Apparently the change will happen in a month, I feel like I am on a roller-coaster and there is nothing I can do about it.
Must be a day for announcements, seems that the maternity services on a grand scale are due for some major changes. As a midwife these can be viewed both positively and negatively. The positive is that they could encourage healthy women to view pregnancy and birth more as a natural process and less a medical episode, but the negatives are numerous. It is going to involve staff either having to follow the unit, which may involve them in commuting many more miles to work, or they will leave which will cause the units which are ear-marked for closure to become short-staffed as people leave to work at a unit which suits them better. These changes are going to cost huge amounts of money, where is this going to come from, there is no money 'in the pot' as it is, everywhere is experiencing cut-backs and reducing the services they offer, how is this extra money going to magically appear? For the users of the service it is going to involve longer journeys to the maternity units, bad enough if it is for consultant appointments but if they are in labour it could be problematic. Supposing they have other children and have to stay in hospital for some reason, access will be more difficult, childcare issues may be problematic, and what if they don't drive, a taxi 2 miles is one cost, a taxi to travel 20 miles is an entirely different matter. I foresee many more 'save our unit' protests.
This is all going round in money wasting circles anyway. We used to have G.P units, they were closed. A few years ago stand-alone birth units sprang up, over the last couple of years though they have all been closing due to staffing issues (not wanting to spend the money on the staff). So there they were, all these midwifery-led units, fitted out for the purpose, and now they have been swallowed up by other services. So now they are going re-open, be re-fitted, re-staffed by staff who will need extra training to work in a midwifery-led environment, how much will that cost? Who is planning all this? Is it the consumer? Is it the midwives? No, it's faceless bureaucrats, here today, gone tomorrow, wasting our money but then making sure their salaries are being paid by cut-backs in services.
**Important, if you drive**
If you drive a car, please read -
Sarah Kennedy was talking about this proposed car tax scheme on Radio 2. Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the 'Pay As You Go' road tax.
The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it and 750,000 signatures are required for the goverment to at least take any notice.
Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.
The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.
On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill.
If you are concerned about this Orwellian plan and want to stop the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible. Sign up if you value your freedom and democratic rights -
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax
Hmmm
So good to know that people have a good impression about midwives:-
'Midwives are the weak link that no one wants to talk about. When there are 10,000 midwife vacancies, when 60 per cent of those who do work are part-time, some cannot even spot a woman in labour, let alone provide the one-to-one support that controlled trials have shown can significantly reduce adverse outcomes. And when so many are patronising or panicked, the effect can be disastrous. One reason that the number of Caesareans is so high is because so many women become terrified by the feeling that no one is in charge. It stalls their labour.'
If you want to read the whole article it's here. I'm just surprised that my favourite ranting G.P hasn't quoted it - yet. I'm not quite sure what this columnist is saying here, is it that because midwives work part-time we are useless and can't provide one-to-one support in labour? Crikey, I knew that most maternity units are now reducing the number of whole-time equivalent midwives they employ but I hadn't realised that it was by as many as 10,000, no wonder I often feel so alone, I must be one of the few midwives left, no wonder it's difficult to provide one to one care.
I'm a slightly happier bunny today, I was very low when I wrote the other day, I have had, in the scheme of things, good news, the HOM has changed the area I will be moving to, and it's now on my doorstep, almost literally. Hurrah. I've had some other good news, but that's a secret, for now.