On the increase

Life has recently become extremely hectic and there is now much more juggling with commitments. Family life has been full, June has 2 birthdays and, in our household, that always heralds family meals so we all mustered the other weekend to celebrate Joshua’s 1st birthday (time has flown), his Mummy’s birthday, Father’s Day, son-in-law passing his electricians course (3 years hard graft after a working day at evening college) and me getting a new job. June also appears to be the month when our ‘children’ need a weekend away, so Mum and Dad end up having the grandchildren and not enough sleep.

The new job, well I’m still doing my old one as a community midwife but I have now also taken on another role, within the same Trust, midwifery related but not clinical. I know, I’m always wittering on about wanting to retire so what on earth has possessed me? Two things have prompted this, firstly it is a role that has always really interested me, and secondly, due to the bankers and the politicians I am one of the select group of women who find themselves most disadvantaged by the changes to pensions, state and NHS. I was amazed to be selected for the job as on the day of the interview I had some nasty virus which was causing me to appear grey, subdued and huddled and the interview was at the end of a particularly busy working day. I knew one person on the panel but the other 2 were entirely unknown to me so either the other candidates were totally unacceptable drop-outs with no grasp of the language or the one person I knew bribed the other interviewers!

Community is plodding along, this month has on the whole been quieter postnatally but I have managed to squeeze in 2 homebirths and a birth at the midwife-led unit. One of the homebirths set my adrenaline soaring, all my own fault really as I was being too relaxed, so was the woman in labour, and didn’t phone the 2nd midwife in time, in fact I didn’t phone her at all as my hands were full. I had to ask the woman’s husband to phone her and request she come PDQ, unfortunately it wasn’t PDQ enough as baby arrived 15 minutes before the 2nd midwife, luckily all was well though. There was still a slight frisson when I realised that baby was on her way out and I hadn’t got another pair of hands if needed, all the adverse scenarios started racing through my mind, but then I banished them and I concentrated on welcoming baby into the world.

I wrote all of this yesterday but when I ‘published’ it all that appeared was the title, the body of the text had vanished, for good, and this is the second time that has happened, is anyone else experiencing this?

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