slightly bizarre birth (though it all ends up in hospital)

My friend was expecting her second baby this coming weekend and was slightly
paniced as 5th November is bonfire night in the UK and most towns have huge
fireworks displays and whole areas of town are just completely impassable by
car and they live right next to the common where it will be happening, so we
were all crossing our fingers it would happen before then, though her first
had been induced at 42+3 days late.

Yesterday morning I saw her husband and daughter at playgroup and he said
she had been contracting, so he'd stayed off work and was taking Erin out of
her way, but everything had stopped and she'd been in touch with the
hospital and they'd not been all that helpful, basically didn't want her to
go in, didn't want even to check her reassure her or anything.

At 6.30ish I get a call, it's our baby sitter, she can't sit for us as she
has to go and sit for Erin. I later find out that the friend had called the
sitter and hour or so earlier going help my contractions are every 3 minutes
and I don't know what to do and she had very sensibly told her to call the
hospital and don't let them discourage you, tell them you are going in and
you are having a baby whether they have space or not.

I chased round trying to find another sitter as we really needed to go to
what we had comitted to, this sitter had been arranged for over a month, but
no joy, so we ended up taking Nathanael round to the families house where he
played very happily with Erin and helped put her to bed (she is 6 months
younger than him). Then the husband's parents show up, they had taken an
alternative route because of road works and it had turned out to be quicker,
so the sitter is a bit stuck, she has to leave, but she has Nathanael with
her, so she decides to find us and get out keys, but she is confused as to
where we are, so she goes to where she thinks we are and finds another
friend and shares all the news, apparently her husband had seen the mum to
be and the doctors surgery at 5pm where she was being told nothing was
happening, (working the timings out it would have not been much later when
she phoned the other friend in a panic). Fortunately the person she sees
knows where we are, as we are with the people she is sitting for at a
different location, so the sitter heads across town and comes into the
building, looking rather stressed and DH and I panic, I'm not sure what we
thought, whether it was Nathanael, Erin, or the mum-to-be who was in
trouble, thankfully she only wanted our housekeys!

We found out this morning that she had a little boy at 9.50, so only about
3hrs after she got to the hospital, the boy is fine, which is a big relief
as Erin had a heart defect that was only discovered after her birth, so I
think they were nervous, though a thorough heart scan had been done at about
16 weeks.

What amazes me is quite how many people were aware things were happening and
were partially involved at any stage, most of the time, you realise that the
person hasn't been at an event and wonder if they are having the baby and
the next day you find out.

What shocks me is how bad things seem to be at our local hospital at the
moment, the stories like this of not being able to go in are becoming very
frequent, the week before Ada was born, someone gave birth in the corridor,
not because there was no time but because there wasn't space, or staff.

When I had Ada, I was told that once they had given me prostaglandin they
had to continue as it was stressful for the baby, yet when the crunch came
they left me in limbo for 8-10hrs with short sharp irritability, yet before
they had done it they told me they would do something after 6hrs (and had I
been aware that they wouldn't I would have refused the dose, it took a lot
of persuading for me to accept it anyway), whether that was give me an
epidural as things were happening, or give me another dose, or start
pitocin, which they did none of, but also refused to give me my regular
medication!

Hopefully I'll get to see the new little baby tomorrow, there are so many
around me at the moment I am getting really broody, even though Ada is not
yet 5 months. Nathanael was really sweet earlier, he said "see Erin", and I
told him he couldn't as Erin's mummy had had a baby and then he said "see
Erin's baby", awwwww.

I want to stomp my feet a bit more, the situation at my local hospital is
really bugging me, I'm considering joining the "maternity services liason
committee" it's got all kind of people on it from all different areas,
different types of doctors, also midwives, health visitors, breastfeeding
bods and a small number of mums apparently they want more, but I wonder if I
will just end up getting even more frustrated!

Cheers

Anne