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Friday, January 23, 2004
When you have your new baby it feels strange at first, you can't remember his name, I know it begins with an M - Martin, Maurice or I know - it's Matthew. This little alien being that you know is related to you but you don't understand quite how.
As the child grows and develops and becomes more and more his or her own person you love them more and more.
I found myself gazing in absolute adoration the other day at my 3 year old grandson, watching with complete delight the efficient way he polishes off his yoghurt, licks the foil lid so as not to miss any, and then cleverly spoons the rest out and really empties the pot so as not to miss any. I remembered watching my own children and my mother-in-law taking huge delight in everything they did. Look at him Caroline - watch how he works that out. Look Caroline she's picking flowers for us - how sweet.
Mind you the adoration of the toddler who is designed to be entrancing and funny - your own little cabaret show is gluing you to that child so that when she/he becomes Mr Disgusting twelve year old, Miss Stroppy six year old your memory of easier times keeps you going, hoping that they will return - (they do).
Posted by Caroline Flint , 5:01 PM
Monday, February 03, 2003
Today I went to pick up my little grand dauighter and drove past a Day Nursery and shed a few tears. In 1976 when I was just about to finish my midwifery training I was invited by my friend Belinda Ackerman to the presentation she and her Group were putting on as their final project for their midwifery training. It was a presentation called "Whose baby is it anyway?" and it challenged the way women were being pushed about in the maternity services at that time (I hate to say this but I don't think it it was as bad as it is now). I remember their thoughtful and clear presentation being completely trashed by a Consultant Obstetrician, he was so snide, so sneering, his arguments against theirs were so persuasive, his knowledge of research so up to date and so clear that he completely destroyed their arguments.
I went home destroyed, these women with whom I had so much in common were unable to match his clarity, unable to argue and debate on his level, he made them just look silly and over emotional. I said to my husband "I can't do this, I can't do this midwifery, I can't fight such powerful men, I can't cope - it's just too hard."
The next day I went to the Day Nursery and applied for the job of cook - they were advertising for one. I could cook, I had cooked for quite large numbers. I did a sample menu for a fornight, was asked to attend for an interview and I got the job.
My relief was enormous, I wouldn't have to fight these frightfully clever and articulate men, I could stay cosy and safe inside the kitchen. I could opt out of this difficult job of midwife, I could leave it to others to fight, I was going to cook.
That is until my friends heard about this madness. "But you've worked really hard to become a midwife." "You have taken leave of your senses to give up now." "Don't be ridiculous Caroline, you've always wanted to be a midwife, get on with it."
I realised that they were right, I rang the Nursery and apologised for wasting their time, I applied for a job as a Community Midwife and got it and the rest they say is history.
But the sight of that Nursery made me cry, I re-lived the feelings of fear and desperation that I had felt then, the hopelessness and despair but how glad I am that I never became that cook, being a midwife, battling with those clever, articulate men was frightening at first but now it is just part of my life and as I get older so many of them have become really good dear friends and the passage of time and events have made the Obstetric Profession one of the most approachable groups of doctors, but re-living those feelings was very powerful today.
Posted by Caroline Flint , 10:00 PM
Friday, January 24, 2003
Not only is it wonderful to receive news of "our" babies as they grow, the memory of being with women in labour stays with us and we think about it frequently. The other day I was pushing my grandson on the swings and a woman came up to me and said "hello" and pointed out her four year old standing there. She was astonished when I said "Oh yes, I remember your house and your lovely garden. Do you remember ...." Of course when you are able to get to know women their birth stands out and is memorable because each birth is so unique.
One woman stands, one woman squats, one woman leans forward onto her husband, one woman is in the pool - fascinating and completely unique, no wonder we remember.
Other intimacies are gorgeous too but the one I feel burdened by is when you give me your front door key. I have four strange front door keys in my purse - weighing me down, but who do they belong to? That's the rub! I haven't a clue. I can't throw them away in case you ring tomorrow and say "Caroline has my front door key from just after the baby was born. Please return it."
What to do? Probably decline to take them in future explaining that they go into a bottomless pit - and explain that even if I switched careers to that of a burglar - I'm really not agile enough and I like the present job!
Posted by Caroline Flint , 7:14 AM
Friday, January 17, 2003
Christmas is a lovely time for midwives - we receive cards and photos from so many mothers and babies - thank you if you sent us a photo of little Jimmy (now 24) - the pleasure it gives us is enormous.
Posted by Caroline Flint , 9:59 AM
Saturday, September 07, 2002
During the past month we have had a woman from New York who has come (for the second time) to have a baby with us. We have a woman from Norwich who has also come to have a baby and we are expecting any minute a woman to arrive from Italy to give birth with us. Isn't it lovely that our reputation is growing so much? Weeell - yes and no. What it says to me is that these women are not able to get the sort of birth they want where they are. It signifies the seriousness of the situation whereby women whose requests are reasonable - such as "I'd like a birth with as little intervention as possible" or "I'd like to try and have a vaginal birth after a previous caesarean section" or "I've already given birth naturally and brilliantly twice and now I'm expecting twins I'd like to give birth to them normally too, not be told I must have a caesarean section at 37 weeks"
These are intelligent, caring women. These women will have a ceasarean section if they need to, they will have intervention if absolutely necessary, but they are being treated as deviants where they come from. Deviants for wanting to give birth normally and without fuss - whatever is happening in this crazy world? Sometimes I despair!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
Yesterday - September 6th was the 52nd Anniversary of when I decided to become a midwife. My sister was born and I was eight years old. She was born at home and although I was not at the birth I saw her very soon after she appeared. It was such a transcendental moment for me that I can still remember her extraordinarily clearly, her red, red soft skin, her black bushy hair and her wonderful and amazing smell. There and then I decided to become a midwife and also I longed to have babies of my own one day. So thank you to my Mum for helping me with career selection at such an early age, and for showing me that childbirth was something so normal that people did it at home, in their own bedrooms, with just a motherly looking woman to help (no Dads there in those days!). Ask any midwife and you will often find a similar story, many of us decided during childhood that this was the path for us - how lucky we were to know, it makes decision making later in life so much easier.
Posted by Caroline Flint , 10:10 AM
When you have your new baby it feels strange at first, you can't remember his name, I know it begins with an M - Martin, Maurice or I know - it's Matthew. This little alien being that you know is related to you but you don't understand quite how.
As the child grows and develops and becomes more and more his or her own person you love them more and more.
I found myself gazing in absolute adoration the other day at my 3 year old grandson, watching with complete delight the efficient way he polishes off his yoghurt, licks the foil lid so as not to miss any, and then cleverly spoons the rest out and really empties the pot so as not to miss any. I remembered watching my own children and my mother-in-law taking huge delight in everything they did. Look at him Caroline - watch how he works that out. Look Caroline she's picking flowers for us - how sweet.
Mind you the adoration of the toddler who is designed to be entrancing and funny - your own little cabaret show is gluing you to that child so that when she/he becomes Mr Disgusting twelve year old, Miss Stroppy six year old your memory of easier times keeps you going, hoping that they will return - (they do).
Posted by Caroline Flint , 9:41 AM
Monday, June 17, 2002
What a magical job this is. Last Sunday I was in Sevenoaks - someone in early labour and I am distracting her by chatting, she and her husband are such an interesting couple that they are pure delight to talk to so I have to get myself out of their house because I am holding up the labour. Can't go home it's too far away and she is likely to be quick once things get going. Hence the day spent in Sevenoaks.
First I go to Pizza Express for lunch. I take my Sunday paper and read and eat contentedly. I look up and see a familiar face - it can't be, it is, a woman who lives in London but happens to be in Sevenoaks. Val and I were her midwives when her daughter was born six years ago - and yes, there is a six year old girl with her. What a treat to catch up with them both and what a coincidence.
Later I go to a wonderful wild fowl sanctuary and watch ducks and water birds for an hour or two. At one point I am next to a stream 20 feet above the lake, the stream makes a waterfall into the lake. On the stream quacking and squeaking contentedly are a mallard duck and her four little brown balls of cotton wool - all newly hatched and tiny. To my horror one of the little ducklings gets caught up in the current and is swept the twenty feet with the waterfall - down into the lake, to obvious death as far as I'm concerned. Not a bit of it, 2 minutes later there is the little brown ball of cotton wool squeaking away and bobbing on the lake. The mother duck flies down to join it and then quacks very loudly at the other three tiny balls of fluff. One by one, they hurl themselves the twenty feet down to their mother (no wings - too tiny) - talk about nature in the raw!! The birth when it finally came was very nice too!
Have recently returned from Canada seeing relatives - lovely time, beautiful scenery, wonderful welcome. Giles and I went round the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa - highly recommended. Wonderful exhibits - beautifully and sensitively done. Giles found me in tears over one - this was "heros who made our country", people like Laura Secord who bravely ran miles and miles to alert the Canadians that the US army was advancing, things like the underground railway shipping escaping slaves out of the United States. Then lo and behold - MIDWIVES - and a depiction was made of their brave treks out to labouring women in snowed-in log cabins and their horse rides to bring another baby into the world - why the tears you may ask. Because the nation then had the audacity to make midwives illegal, as they are in many states in the USA, and in Canada they were only legalised about ten years ago and I don't think they are yet legal in all states. Poor Giles, who has heard it all before had to lead a weeping woman to the coffee shop muttering "How dare they, how dare they make us illegal". we midwives lead very emotionally charged lives!
Posted by Caroline Flint , 10:17 PM
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