Midwives rock- It's never too late to say Thanks

I've been  off the radar for the last few months.

It happened. I became a mum.

And it was as wonderful and as earth shifting as I expected - if not more. My little girl has become totally all encompassing. I'm in love. I'm besotted. But I wanted to take this time to build our little family together rather than share it on this blog. To be honest, we had a bit of bumpy ride getting here, so I needed to take time to properly digest!

But I'm ready to revisit.

I'll share my birth story at another date, but when I logged in today I came across I blog left in my drafts, written on the hospital ward 5 months ago... so I thought I'd better start with that:

5th May 2017

I try not be to be a judgmental person.

I like to have a diverse range of friends, different backgrounds, genders, sexual preferences, political leanings... But having been on an antenatal ward for 5 days I have to admit that people are really starting to grate on me.

I got admitted to hospital quite suddenly last week, and since then I have been a resident of 'Ward 21' at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough.

I would like to just say that the midwives and support staff on the ward are superstars.  They see women in their rawest of moments, are supportive when the women is swearing and screaming, belligerent when the woman needs to do something different, and patient when dealing with complaints from stressed birthing partners that can't understand why their loved one isn't being prioritized.  The emotional swells that that I have seen the team react and respond to over the last 5 days would be insurmountable for the majority of people, but these ladies just take it all on the chin as part of their working day.

My view.

These ladies are part caregiver, part confidant, part customer services operative, and they deftly juggle all of these hats.

So how can it be that some people take it on to themselves to be plain rude to these hard grafting women (all the midwives on the ward are ladies, no generalizing here!)? I've seen midwives sworn at, bullied and threatened. And not at women in the throes of labour, which I could partly excuse, but by men and women who feel that they somehow deserve more, or better than what they are getting.

Of course childbirth, and becoming a parent can be a terrifying experience for a lot of couples, you're caught in an emotional swirl that you can't escape. You're on a train and you can't jump off until it reaches that inevitable station.  As a heavily pregnant woman, you are both amazingly powerful and powerless. But it is also a leveler.  And there is no reason that you should take it out on the midwifery staff.

So I just wanted to say, because I'm sure people don't say it enough: Team, you guys rock.