Labour of love - Part 2

I woke up at 4 a.m. on the ward, ravenously hungry.  Luckily TheBloke (TM) and I had planned for such eventualities, and I snacked on a handy cereal bar.

I dozed until 6 a.m. when I got another good fingering by the midwives, who still couldn't get my pesky cervix to open.

I'd never been that impressed by Whipps Cross Hospital; antenatal appointments had occasionally run two hours late, their admin systems were ridiculous, and once I waited seven hours for a doctor, whom I was repeatedly told "would be here in a minute".  So I was disgusted, but not entirely surprised, to notice as the dawn broke that my undersheet was covered in dried blood.  I wasn't bleeding.  It was not my blood.

The next time the midwife came over, I pointed it out to her in a haughty tone of voice.  She apologised, said someone would be along to change the sheets, and promised they were clean on... and then questioned, "Hang on a minute, could that be chocolate?"

I remembered the Tracker Bar I'd wolfed down at 4 a.m., then noticed (a little too late) my pillowslip and nightdress were similarly festooned in chocolate.  I apologised and resolved not to be any more trouble for that shift.

TheBloke (TM), on my insistence, had gone home for the night; nothing was happening, and chances are he'd be up all night at some point in the next few months, whenever the naughty little monkey decided to grace us with her presence.  So he was due to come back in the morning.  Which he did, after spending a good hour driving round and round the carpark at the hospital, utterly failing to find a parking space.  Stupid other people.  I hate other people.  In the meantime, I'd been moved to a private room on the labour ward.

We met our midwife, who ran through our wanky birth plan.  I shan't detail all of the wankiness, but essentially it involved:

• Music to be played throughout the labour.  I had created my own birth playlist, filled with music I knew TheBloke (TM) hated, mostly just to irritate him.
• Give me drugs.  Lots of drugs.  Fuck off with your "natural birth".  Keep me away from your stupid water births.  I want drugs.
• TheBloke (TM) to cut the cord
• Delayed cord clamping to ensure the sprog got all those lovely nutrients
• Just to reiterate, I would like drugs.

They meant business!  Induction time was go go go!  Except it wasn't.  Because suddenly the labour ward got really full of people who were giving birth naturally (or as I like to call them, queue-jumping bastards) and they didn't have enough staff on hand to induce me.  So I read The Remains of the Day and TheBloke (TM) commandeered my iPad and set to work destroying piggies in Angry Birds.

For the second day running, I was offered a choice of lunch - exactly the same lunch as I'd had on the same ward when I had labyrinthitis.  They clearly have the same lunch every day.  It's like Groundhog Day.  Cheese and tomato sandwich or tuna and cucumber sandwich.  I chose cheese and tomato.  TheBloke (TM) ate it.

The next step was to put a cannula into my hand for a saline drip to keep my fluids up.  Now, I have seen enough junior doctor programmes to know that cannulas are tricky beasts.  I made the mistake of mentioning this to my midwife.  "So long as you don't take nine attempts to do it," I quipped.  "Oh no," she replied. " I'll just have one go, and if I can't get it in, I'll get someone else to have a go."

I tried not to worry - after all, when I'd been on the ward before with labyrinthits, they got it in first time, painful though it was.

The midwife had a go.  She didn't manage it.  She brought a second midwife to have a go.  She couldn't do it either.  At this point I looked something like a failed suicide attempt.

So they called on Dr Duffy.  Dr Duffy was Welsh.  And - to give him his due, he got the cannula in first time.  But it hurt.  A lot.  And he put it in my forearm, which was a really stupid place to put it.  And did I mention it hurt?  So much so that I might have threatened to punch him.  "Oh," said Dr Duffy, "the last person who did that is still paying me compensation of £5 per month."

This interested me.  £5 a month?  I shouldn't have opened my mouth.  "That sounds totally worth it," I said.

"Yeah," said Dr Duffy, "but look at me, a six foot Welsh hard man.  I think I can take you."

And that, dear readers, is how a nine-and-a-half month pregnant woman ended up being threatened by NHS staff.  I will be writing a letter shortly demanding my £5 per month.