Breath of Fresh Air

On my way to work for the late shift on delivery suite on Monday. Extremely pissed off at the world and wondering when my life was going to take an upturn (so a cheery sort of mood I was in just in case you hadn't guessed already).
As I arrived on the delivery suite, ten minutes late I hasten to add, there she stood; like a breath of fresh air, she is keen, enthusiastic, motivated, passionate no less......the student midwife and a third year to boot. Get in! She is 22, has flawless skin and not an ounce of fat on her. Despite all this I still like her.She has the dads at all sixes and sevens and the letchy consultant obstetrician thinks all his birthdays have come at once.
This cheered me up immensely. I really enjoy mentoring student midwives. I teach them the ideal and it re - ignites my own passion, makes me remember what it is all about. This particular student is a darling, I mentored her in her first year when she was timid, lacking in confidence and seemed so bloody young. Now she is a confident, knowledgeable go getting practitioner of midwifery. I am trying my best to get her to take the lead but I find it so difficult. Partly because I don't know when to shut up and partly because I am a bit of a control freak.
It helps that she has worked with me before though, she knows how I work and it is nice to see that she adapted some of my more positive traits into her own practice. Such as writing a plan every time anything changes, my systematic way of recording events and I am thankful that she turns the lights down low and creates an atmosphere of calm and serenity so that the woman may labour feeling safe and secure.
I think the third year student midwife whom I shall refer to as twin 1 on account that her identical twin sister, twin 2 is also a student midwife on delivery suite at the moment, will do very well. She will be a credit to midwifery. I just hope she doesn't become burnt out and fed up like her old mentor. No doubt she will.

Who says romance is dead?

Sadly, Darling Boyf is away this weekend and unable to celebrate this, the most commercialised of saints days, with his lovely girlfriend. However, in the spirit of true romance he gave me a tenner and told me to nip to Asda where they were doing an offer of champagne and choc's for £14.00. (I was expected to front up the shortfall of £4.00).

It worked out well as it happens as it was in fact Marks' that were doing said offer. Asda had an even better one: A bottle of £25.00 champagne reduced to a tenner. So I bought two! Quoffed one last night while watching Corrie and chatting on the phone to Married to a Doctor for 2 hours.

DB working away does have its advantages. I'll have to save the other one I suppose to share with DB. I'll just tell him I ate the chocs. He'll never know!

Priceless

I had quite an entertaining if not somewhat disheartening day yesterday. Two separate incidents occurred which made me fear for our future generations.

Firstly, I had a phone call from an extremely worried mother who was 16 weeks pregnant. She had been making Yorkshire puddings and while beating the mixture some had inadvertently splashed into her eye. She wanted to know if the raw eggs would affect the baby. Is it just me?

Later on, as I was waiting to hand over to the postnatal ward a new dad came to the desk asking for a bottle for the baby. When I asked which kind of teat he wanted for said bottle he replied "the breastfeeding ones".

I despair! I realise that through natural selection not all of us were born to be rocket scientists, but come on! Has common sense gone completely out of the window? What of the unborn offspring of these people?

It is a sad fact that more intelligent people, for a variety of reasons, are less fertile. There is the joke about a man of average intelligence, who decides to be cryogenically frozen. He wakes 500 years in the future to find that he is the most intelligent person on the planet. It is really happening.

For now when I hear little gems such as these I shall smile sweetly and share them with my colleagues. It keeps us all sane. We are in it together! God help us.

Falling off the Smoking Wagon

Work wasn't quite as crap as I had envisaged. Still didn't want to be there though. I have had two days off and had quite a nice time really.

Wednesday night went to see Bossy Friend and managed to drink three bottles of pink sparkling between the two of us. Result! Getting into the taxi to take me home I fell off the smoking wagon very unceremoniously and ended up paying three times the fair from Bossy Friend's house to mine as I insisted he went via the twenty four hour garage so that I could purchase ten menthol. So the evening cost: Pink Sparkling 1 bottle £3.99 (Aldi special not bad either although this was bottle number three so I don't know how much you could trust our judgement).
Taxi Fair home £10.00
10 Richmond Menthol £2.44 (although I only smoked four and threw the rest away the following day)
Total: £16.43

The evening should have cost: Pink sparkling £3.99
Taxi Fair £3.50
Total: £7.49
However, I made a few savings here and there. Here is what the evening could have cost:
Pink Sparkling (usual brand) £8.99
Bus fair to Bossy friend's £1.25 (she gave me a lift)
Taxi fair home £3.50
Total: £14.74

Who am I kidding? I'm pathetically trying to justify paying a taxi driver too much to take me to buy cigarettes. I had been doing so well too. Paul McKenna is a wonderful man. I think the only solution is to stop drinking. But then what? I ask You (shaking my fists at the sky) "What is left? Are there no earthly pleasures that aren't bad for me?" Even sex is a bloody chore at the mo' thanks to operation Make a Baby.

Anyway, I have resolved to drink less for three reasons 1. I want to make a baby and alcohol is not conducive to this. 2. I want to stop smoking when I'm drunk so the best way to do that is to stop getting drunk for a while (so that I can make a baby). 3. I hate hangovers!

Let us see how I get on. On the up side I did have a lovely time at Bossy Friend's and she wasn't even one bit bossy. Maybe she knows??

Post Holiday Blues

Boo bleedin' hoo! Back to the soul sucking, life eating, creativity inhibiting, individuality limiting, hell hole that is my place of work. When I tell people what I do for a living it ilicits one of two reactions:
Scenario 1 "So, what do you do for a living?" (Mr *MCT)
"I'm a Midwife!" (me)
".................." followed by a polite smile.
Scenario 2. "So, what do you do for a living?" (Mrs MCT)
"I'm a Midwife!" (me)
"Aw, what a lovely job! I always wanted to be a Midwife. Especially after the birth of my first son Hugo, he was born by ventouse after a forty hour labour, isn't that right darling? and blah blah blah, I said just give me the f*****g epidural,blah blah, tore from here to here, blah blah,cracked nipples blah blah midwife couldn't help me breastfeed blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah".

Let me tell you straight ladies that being a midwife is NOT a lovely job. Apart from the obvious downside of having to discuss everyone else's birth experience within the context of a social gathering, it is a physically, emotionally and mentally draining job. When I became a midwife I was so impassioned. I was going to change the world! Four years on and the passion has dwindled somewhat.

The reality is quite different from the ideal. My idea of being a midwife is supporting women through this, the most natural of processes. Encouraging them to make informed decisions, helping them to understand the consequences of their decisions and having faith in their body's ability to give birth and cope with the pain associated with labour. I am an advocate for home births, water births, anything that avoids interventions. Sound easy? Yeh right!

The problems one is faced with are numerous. Firstly, your colleagues: Not all midwives are singing from the same hymn sheet. Many are content to give every woman they care for an epidural and to keep things as medicalised as possible. Some midwives are more medicalised than the medics!

Secondly: The midwife to woman ratio is anything but conducive to support and the building of a trusting midwife - mother relationship. Some days on the delivery suite I could be caring for up to three women.

Thirdly; the women themselves are ill informed, scared and have little faith in their ability to give birth. The issues are embedded deep in our culture. The NHS views women's services as being way down on their list of priorities and this is evident in how poorly resourced and under - funded this area is. Midwives are leaving and I don't blame them.

However, as I didn't get the jackpot on the euromillions this week then return I must. Some days I make a little bit of a difference to individual's or couples' birth experience and these are the days that I cherish. I drive home with a smile on my face and on these days I think "Aw, what a lovely job!". Sadly, as the unit becomes busier and busier these days are becoming fewer and fewer.

To top it all I have a rotten cold and DB is away all week. aaarrrggghhhh!! Large glass of red required me thinks!

Will let you know how it goes.

*Middle Class Tosser (see earlier post "Remember, Remember I'd Rather Forget for full description)