25 weeks ~ baby group

I had a dentist appointment this week, pretty straight forward, at least my teeth seem to be healthy, and I didn’t have to pay for it as you’re exempt when you’re pregnant!

I also visited my friends mother and baby group, she’s trying to branch out to pregnant women as well so she roped me in!  It was really good to go to, I spoke to lots of new Mum’s about their experiences of local services and it all seemed positive.  It’s also run by my friend’s mum who’s a paediatric nurse and there’s also a health visitor there, so it’s a really good point of contact for support and advice.  It made me really look forward to being able to take my baby out to places like that and give them the freedom to play and interact with other babies.  Can’t wait!

24 weeks ~ MAT20 form

I had another appointment with the communitymidwife, it was a different midwife, which didn’t really matter to me as mostof my care was being carried out at Epsom Hospital anyway, but it did mean Ihad to repeat my medical history again. Having had to tell so many people my medical history has meant that Ihave managed to fit it into a nutshell. The main thing was I got my MAT20 form and was then able to hand in mymaternity request.  I had decided I wanted to try to work until 12^th May, that would give me 3 weeksuntil the baby was due, I knew we could only afford for me to take 6 months off and so I didn’t want to waste too much before baby is born.

22 weeks ~ work update

I haven’t spoken about my situation at work recently, I had really given working on the unit a go but was really struggling, Due to the changing nature of the unit, taking on more 1:1 technology dependent children, I was finding I was feeling more of a hinderence than a help, I was feeling stressed and like I was letting the children down because I was always having to wait for someone to come and help me.  I felt every day I was at work it was all about what I couldn’t do and not what I could.  I eventually decided I had to have a chat with management and got moved to another unit.

From the first shift I felt less stressed and more able to do a good job. Because the children were less dependent you worked as part of a team so there was always someone else around to ask for help.  I felt more supported and I didn’t need to worry about being left on my own because everyone was looking out for me and often the children were independent anyway.  It was like a breath of fresh air, I found I was enjoying the new challenge of working with children who were more aware of what was going on and my confidence was building.

It is great to work somewhere with such a huge diversity of children and units.  I feel very lucky to be able to be moved somewhere more appropriate to my needs.  It is still hard all the limitations put on and working below my potential but that's life, there's nothing I can do about it so may as well make the most of it.  The children I work with are inspirational and if I can help them to meet their challenges that's what counts.