midwife's muse

My cooker passed it's inspection, just needed a new ignition box as the old one had surcumbed to heat and smoke. The dishwasher manufacturer are saying that the fire was the fault of a component and therefore nothing to do with them - ZANUSSI.

Yesterday I has a lovely homebirth. It was my day off but I felt the lady, A, would benefit from having midwives she knew with her. Last birth was at a local unit, and she was quite traumatised by it, so I suggested that this time round she could have baby at home. I'm not her midwife anymore but she still had my number and had been phoning me for the last 4 weeks, in tears, so I felt responsible for her. Her waters went on Friday at 8am and our policy is that women have to go in and be put on the drip if they havn't given birth within 18 hours ( risk of infection). Conflab with the midwife, V, who helped Jack into the world and also knows this lady and she was quite happy to be on call for A with me. The hospital said she had to go in at 10pm and go on the drip. We discussed this with A who said she wanted to give it 24 hours, and ......... the on-call consultant backed A's  informed decision. So at 7am I was sitting in A's front room eating toast and drinking coffee whilst she lounged in a bath. Her contractions were coming thick and fast and what was interesting was watching her movements, she kept tilting her pelvis to the left. I was certain the baby was asynclitic, the baby's head is tilted to the side and so has a hard time coming through the pelvis. Eventually we got her to lie on her side for half an hour whilst I held her leg up and wonders, suddenly baby's head starting appearing. A decided to squat at this point and out came baby, with his head turned the wrong way. Minor drama in that the cord snapped, but I clamped it quickly and baby was fine. A was delighted with her homebirth and V and I have been invited round to celebrate next weekend. When V and I got to the hospital to sort out our equipment we discussed the birth and were really pleased that we had chosen to be with her. 100% certain that if we had called off because we were officially not on-duty she would have been 'invited' in to the hospital, put on a drip and the course of labour would have mirrored her previous experience. Expecting fireworks on Monday though when the managers hear about our escapade.

We are moving back into our little house on 7th October. I'm really excited, but also feel slightly nervous. My qualms are due to a silly event during the week. I had just started shopping in our local superstore when the fire alarms went off, fine, just carried on pushing my trolley around, and then the loud-speaker told us to evacuate as there was a fire, leave your shopping and exit by the fire-exits. I was still okay, dutifully filing out with all the other shoppers. Then the loud-speaker told us it was a false-alarm, we could continue shopping, sorry for any upset etc. I retrieved my trolley, fire-alarm still sounding, started pushing it down the aisles, when this knot tightened in my chest, and I realised I was crying. Luckily I pulled myself together quickly. Thinking about it I have been more emotional since the news that we are moving back in, the decorators were treated to it when I pointed out that you could still see the marks where my cats had tried to escape. I guess that the drawer in my brain that had closed and shielded me from everything has opened slightly and is making me deal with it. 

18.9.05 12:42