Bean’s fist exposure to the power of celebrity as mum-to-be got all giddy when she was given advice on her impending experience by none other than her hero one Mr Richard Hawley at an in-store appearance. Apparently the mother of his children just did it on a paracetamol and the advice was definitely against an epidural.
As a friend pointed out – easy for him to say (though this is the same friend who told his wife he could relate to her pain as he’d just eaten a whole bag of dried apricots & had indigestion).
What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon…a trip to preview the facilities at our hospital of choice. Or at least, what we thought was our hospital of choice. After our visit, we’re not so sure.
It started badly, asking directions was a bit hit & miss and it turned out to be (for someone with a well developed bump) a not insignificant walk form the nearest drop-off point to the front door. Okay, fair enough, it’s a new unit, part of a huge re-development of the whole hospital but it means the department is open and functioning in the middle of a building site which isn’t due ot complete and be fully open for a long time yet.
Thus access can at best be described as restricted, and at worst, an absolute pain. Part one of the tour revealed internal politics – the main doors aren’t manned post 8pm so you have to use the emergency children’s ward entrance. Only, they don’t really like people doing that. As our guide for the afternoon helpfully pointed out “try & have your baby in opening hours”. Hmmm.
Another slight problem for us is the fact that our midwives are actually based at a different hospital. So they’ve been telling us what processes we should expect, what treatments might be needed, how the facilities are, how to get there etc etc. Only it turns out that, despite only a few miles separating them, processes differ. Bring on a number of fundamental changes to our likely treatment. Hmmm again.
Admittedly, the facilities are very new, but to the point of not actually having unpacked. And as we were told, no funding through yet for soft touches, like pictures on the walls, TVs, radios, etc etc. And while the midwife led care unit was great to see, we’re not actually able to use it. So it’s obstetrics for us.
Final straw of the day…a mother-to-be getting rushed through reception screaming the roof off (and it’s only just been put on too) while our guide makes a remark about staying at home but don;t leave it quite that late.
So what should have been a reassuring visit to the likely birthplace of our child ended up being our most traumatic experience of the whole pregnancy (and I include a Saturday evening dash to the emergency ward when some worrying signs were showing up), possibly due to the sense that we’d been let down somehow.
That said, it also tuns out the chances of the bean being born there are perhaps less than we thought – divert figures have been pretty high and judging by the size of the group doing the tour, is showing no sign of abating. Meaning we could well be on divert to our midwives’ base hospital anyway.
Will we change? I’m not sure. We’ll certainly be looking a lot more closely at our other option…not least because we could well end up there regardless of any choices we make.
So that was antenatal classes. Billed as four two hour sessions it ended up being more like five to five and a half hours total. And that’s it. We’re now fully trained and all ready to go!!
To be fair, a lot of useful information was shared with us and in the main the midwives were great. We also found some very near neighbours who are due round the same time so new friendships are forming too.
The sessions were divided into pre-admission, labour & pain relief and (the best bit by far) post-natal and bringing baby home. The fourth session was a breastfeeding workshop with the rather odd arrangement of plastic model boobs to look at & baby dolls to practice with…
Highlights – nappies filled with english mustard & black treacle to demonstrate what nappy contents look like, blowing bubbles to practice regular breathing & wiggling our hips to Flo Rida (I kid you not) to demonstrate useful pain relief techniques at home. Also a really weird Swedish (natch) video filming a newborn as it was left to find its own way to its mothers breast to feed. Strange but amazing all at the same time. It also came with the weirdest matter-of-fact voiceover I’ve ever heard. You’ve not lived until you’ve heard the phrase “this is the first and only time the baby will show an interest in the right breast”.
Lows…certainly the reasonably regular mentions of some of the possible after-effects of birth were possibly overdone…never seen so many blood drained faces and can barely bring myself to type the word ‘tearing’ even now. Also week one and the chap who first belched loudly, then yawned through the rest of it…no wonder dads get a bad name. A potential, but in our case skipped, low – the video of a birth. Our view? We’ll see it live in the not too distant future, and a live event is never quite as good on TV is it? Although most did stick around and watch it we were more than happy to retire gracefully that evening.
So that’s the training done with. Whether or not we remember it, I don’t know. Whether we could have read up on it all, maybe. But having someone to talk to about it all and ask daft questions to was great. Plus the reassurance that other people do it and get it right. Let’s hope so!