Hi Lucy, I wondered if you have ever had counselling? It really sounds
like you need someone who you can talk through some of these things with
as you do have a lot of things coming up and they might help you get
to the bottom of things - I'm not saying that you there is some deep
underlying trauma or anything, but if there is something bigger
bothering you that you haven't been able to put a finger on, or they
might work out that most things you worry about fits into a particular
pattern of thought and be able to help you with that. An increasing
number of GPs surgeries have counsellors, so your GP is probably the
first person to talk to.

On the specific issue of having a boy, or not, I wonder if it might help
you to remember that each child is individual, yes there are some
personality traits that are more common in boys or girls, some
developmental point that on average happen at different times, but each
child is very much an individual and you can have one of each and find
for some things they fit the opposite gender average or stereo type. I
have a boy then a girl, apparently boys are usually slower to speak than
girls, so given DS was pretty much average and then took off really fast
aged about 2 and a quarter, I expected I'd be getting 2 words together
from her well before she was 2, as it turned out she had quite a severe
speech delay (we've no idea why as her understanding always appeared to
be fine and now she is speaking, although the clarity isn't as good as
we'd like, she uses some pretty complex concepts to express herself),
she didn't even say Mummy until 21 months and there are several other
aspects of her that are typically boyish and DS is much more girly,
though they each fit many stereotypes of their own gender.

Another supposed difference between girls and boys is potty training,
well, the less said about that the better - I think the moral of the
story is to not assume anything, you could get a girl who is the total
opposite of Jessie, or a boy who is very similar!

With antenatal care and the named midwife thing, I think that whilst a
named midwife isn't mandatory, it's stronger than a guideline and people
high up in various places want to hear from women who don't have one, it
might be helpful for you to contact AIMS, a charity that supports
improvement of maternity services and can work one on one with
individuals to help them access the best care within their local
situation. Sometimes random occurances mean you don't get a midwife
named, then unless the next person you see then uses her initiative and
puts you on the right track you can just get bounced around - or you
could be unlucky and be in an area with a poor system who've been
getting away with it for too long.

Sadly a lot of work that health visitors do is changing and they seem to
be reducing the numbers of them and spreading the work over staff that
cost less, a lot of things that were previously done in the home are now
being done in clinics etc. There are a lot of different types of nurses
and it's quite possible that whoever deals with toddlers has more
experience and training in that area than a health visitor does - where
we were the health visitor was basically the boss of a team of her plus
two nurses with different titles called the child and family team, the
health visitor wasn't usually at baby clinic as she generally took on
the more challenging work and spent most of her time visiting families
with difficult situations and focused a lot more on the mother than the
baby, but at clinic there was always a sheet to sign if you did want to
see the health visitor, I think she would then call you and arrange a
visit. I have a suspicion that 3 visits in the first 6 weeks from a
health visitor is mandatory, not mandatory from the point of view of you
having to let them in the house, but that they can't be denied to you,
that if you ask for a health visitor not a nurse that somehow they'd
have to work out how to do that. Don't put a health visitor on a
pedestal, just as a specialist nurse can be more of an expert than a
doctor about day to day management of a condition, so can they be better
at at caring for newborns.

If you want to find out more about your rights and how to access
treatment, every primary care trust should have a group known as PALS,
patient advice and liason service, they deal with complaints but they
also deal with any kind of issue of communication, who is providing
care, etc. I rang them once because I'd been told I should have a
procedure done and not really told why, they talked to a nurse in the
department, the nurse called me and talked me through it and decided
that I needed to see the doctor again and booked me the next slot that
got cancelled. Just be sure if you do call to be clear that you are not
making a complaint, so they know what service they are providing to you.

Cheers
Anne