Looking ahead
Clinic yesterday was a reminder of how busy our caseload is going to be in January. Bearing in mind that this is just one clinic out of three, to have 9 women who are all 28 weeks pregnant, tells you that the New Year is going to start with a rush, not good timing as daughter is also now 28 weeks so I shall be otherwise engaged at some point. By the time I had reached the fourth pregnant woman I was already running 10 minutes late, everyone was needing their 'bloods' doing and that adds at least an extra 5 minutes to each appointment. Then in comes M, accompanied by toddler, who they took ages to drag from the toys in the waiting room, and Hubby. They are both health care professionals so you would think that they would appreciate that appointments have time constraints. Oh no, they settled in for a cosy chat, another debrief about the last labour, and a protracted discussion about the plans for this one. I know it's understandable, but we go through this every time, plus it is not my decision, it is theirs and the consultants. Just as I thought that I could say goodbye they requested a 'Fitness to Fly' letter. This is one of my irritations with the G.P's I work for, they will supply them, but they charge £15 and also they take a week to produce them, as a result the women come to us, we charge nothing and we do them whilst they are there, but thats an extra 5 minutes.
I'm now running 20 minutes late and I still have 7 women to see. Allowing for blood taking and filling in blood forms and bottles I did pretty well and by the time I got to the 10th woman I was back to 15 minutes behind. In comes H, Doctor H as her record reminded me. I have never met this lady before but her reputation preceeded her. In her last pregnancy she had stuck with us until near the end and then switched to Independent Midwives for a homebirth on a houseboat. The labour had not gone well and eventually she had been transferred into hospital where she had, after some time, had a caesarian section. I was determined not to be influenced by all the stories I heard so treated her as I would any patient I was meeting for the first time. If they have had a baby before I always ask them how things went last time, it gives you a pretty good idea of how they are viewing things this time round. Well, off we went, a tale of woe, disatisfied with previous community midwife, hates 'that f*****g independent midwife', who I know quite well, and has not hit it off with my job-share. However, she told me that as soon as she saw me that she could get along with me, I think it's because we both have an 'in your face' hair colour! Bearing in mind that each appointment lasts 20 minutes I was becoming anxious by the time she had been recounting her woes for 45 minutes, and I still not examined her and she had forgotten her notes. After 55 minutes she went, with a promise that she would see me again as we 'are kindred spirits'. Blow. I can predict what the course of the next few months will be, countless phonecalls, requests for me to visit at home and an overwhelming desire to tell her she is pregnant, not ill.
I was so full of apologies to my last woman about how long she had to wait. Luckily she viewed it as a quiet break, allowing her time to sit and read magazines and getting her an extra hour off work. Would that everyone was like that.
Jack phoned last night from Gran Canaria to ask me to take photos of Guy and the Bangs, sounds like a rock group but is the guy and the fireworks. Today Amy's Mummy and I bought our contributions to the annual firework fest at friends house, this year there's karoke, sister and BIL are coming, yeah, sisters will be doing it for themselves, proclaiming 'we are family' and other such naff offerings.