midwife's muse

At last

It's here! I have two weeks off now. Not going on holiday, I've got much better stuff to do. The skip is arriving on Monday and I am going to be clearing out the 'dining room' and the loft. The dining room has remained untouched since we bought this house, as a derelict property, 13 years ago. It has become the dumping ground for everyones 'I might use this again' items. This has been handy for Hubby as he uses the fact that it is absolutely overflowing as an excuse for not starting it, so I issued an invitation to all the off-spring to come and reclaim anything they didn't want me to throw out, very little disappeared, so I now consider that I have carte-blanche to blitz the room. My timescale for the room clearing is 5 days, I then move into the loft ( not literally ) and repeat the exercise, whilst Hubby rips out the ceiling and floor boards in the dining-room. That will be exciting!

I'm not abandoning work entirely, I still have parentcraft classes to teach, a union meeting to attend, a study day to go on, and a visit to a birthing centre. In the scheme of things though not too taxing. The visit to the birth centre is a fact-finding, idea provoking mission, but I'm looking forward to it. I work bank shifts in a stand-alone unit (it's not attached to a maternity/obstetric unit) so this is an opportunity to see one functioning alongside a main unit. The unit I work from as a community midwife is merging with another unit 15 miles away, the main one will be where I work but we are working toward having a birth unit ( staffed only by midwives ) either within the main unit or, preferably, at the site of the unit that is closing. We have been having loads of meeting, hot, heated affairs, with consultant obstetricians, trust board members, health authorities, user groups, NCT and local councillors. Some cautiously backing the idea, others vehemently against it, our Head of Midwifery is firmly championing the fight and helping us all the way. I'm now on the steering group deciding the layout and working out the costs, hence the visit, with my Head of Midwifery.

This week at work was busy, as usual. One of my women failed to turn up to have her baby monitored, so I was despatched to check out what was going on. Her excuse was that she had overslept, her appointment was for 2pm. We are monitoring the baby due to Mum's alcohol abuse, baby's growth was virtually stopped and it was suggested baby would be 'better out than in'. When I saw her baby was not moving around and it's heartbeat was racing along slightly faster than I would have liked. I needed to send her in but she said she didn't have anyone who could give her a lift, she hadn't got any money, so she suggested I should pay for a taxi. Our insurance doesn't cover us transporting people in our cars so my only option was to call an ambulance. When she got to the hospital they did a caesarian that night and a little, 4lbs, girl was born. Is she better out than in? It's situations like that little girls that make me unhappy, what is her life going to be like? Yesterday I walked into the office and was immediately given information that made me, and my colleagues groan. A woman, living in the area I cover, had been in labour all night, was refusing to come in to hospital, had concealed the pregnancy, and had previously had a Caesarian Section. Her Mother had phoned demanding that a midwife go out to her and when she was told her daughter must come into hospital she had put the phone down. Oh great! Our supervisors and managers told us what we already knew, we had to attend. My job-share partner and I grabbed the emergency bags and set off on a 15 mile drive towards god-knows what. Virtually immediately I got stuck, on country roads, behind a VW camper van and a skip lorry. This did nothing for my stress levels and unfortuntely gave me time to think about what might greet us the other end. My mind raced through possibilities ranging from early labour or baby having been born by the time we got there and everything being okay, to scars giving way and losing Mum and baby to baby having not made it through this far and having to break this news to Mum. Eventually I got to less twisty roads and roared past the two offending vehicles, my adrenaline levels went through the roof as I drove like a maniac, constantly apologising to my poor little car for the excess I was subjecting her to. When I arrived the pregnant Mum was on all-fours in the hallway, her Mother was fluttering around like a trapped bird, and her step-father had shut himself in the sitting-room. The woman was actually quite reasonable once I had introduced myself, sent her Mum off to make me a coffee, and was then able to chat to her without interuption from the totally weird Mother. By the time my colleague had arrived we were discussing why it was unlikely she would catch MRSA from us, and more importantly the hospital. After examining her and listening to the baby we convinced her that going into hospital would be a good idea. Preparing for that was interesting, she had nothing ready. No baby clothes, no nappies, no clean knickers - nothing. Eventually she was on her way though, and we could report back to the Mothership that all was well. As a result of our little expedition we had a backlog of visits, a cancelled clinic and didn't finish until 7pm. I had indigestion last night, I wonder why? 

2.10.04 19:43