midwife's muse

Having rambled on about placenta praevia the other day I thought I should explain the 'Grades', but whilst 'googling' I found this which does a better job than I could do, it has illustrations.

Sunday found me shopping with Amy and her Mummy, if it was supposed to be for Christmas presents I failed miserably as I only bought a tube of toothpaste. It did give me some ideas though but all thoughts of Christmas are overshadowed by the fact that it is Hubby's birthday a week today, and I have no idea what to buy him.

My methadone addict is home and doing well. Baby is a tiny little thing, a pocket-sized baby at only 4 and a half pounds but is feeding well and is very alert.

Yesterday I had my meeting with Head of Midwifery, daughter elected to join us as she wanted to be able to have her say. It turns out that the meeting she had 6 weeks ago with the Supervisor of Midwives was a pointless exercise as the SOM has not written the promised precis of what was discussed, or talked to the Head of Midwifery, this being the same SOM who, with my manager, accused me of being a poor communicator. The meeting yesterday started off with the H of M being quite forceful and it looked as if there was going to be a battle, especially when she said that she would not stop me being there as her Mother! Her main arguement seemed to be that I couldn't be a midwife and a mother. Daughter put it to her that I would not be able NOT to be a midwife, particularly if things were not going well, and that if I didn't do anything then that would cause more of a problem between us than if I had at least tried. After throwing several  'what if' scenarios of the cord tightly round neck, 'flat' baby, and daughter having a massive bleed and then daughter retaliating by saying that she trusted me more than anyone else she either gave up or suddenly realised what we were saying, I would like to think that it was the latter but who knows. Anyway, daughter has her wish, I can be there as second midwife.

So, the plan is that when she goes into labour she lets me know and then phones the hospital to send the 1st on-call midwife out to her. If it is during the day I either find someone to cover my workload, or if it's an Amy day then I phone her Mummy to come home from work and take over, then off I go round to Daughters, followed by Hubby who will take Jack out for a few hours. Let's just hope it is at night, that will be so much easier. This is all assuming that she has reached 37 weeks, there can be no homebirth before then. At the moment though she is only 33 weeks and is presently rocking around on the birthing ball in my sitting-room, baby is so low that anything else is too uncomfortable. Daughter is also complaining of period type pains and is constantly going to the loo. When I prodded Poppy around earlier her head was so deeply down in the pelvis that I could only feel one fifth of it. In someone having their second+  baby this is quite early for the head to engage. Jack was three weeks early, I'm just wondering if this early descent by Poppy is indicative of another early appearance. I've asked her to pee on a urinalysis stick so I can assess whether she may have a UTI (urinary tract infection) as this may, in part, be contributing to her discomfort.

Off now to make daughter lie down with her posterior raised, might encourage Poppy to shift her position and let her Mummy be more comfortable.

5.12.06 12:44