UCH or Whittington?

Yay, BabySpud may share DD1's birthday on 2 Feb! Hurrah!

Furthest I've ever got to the ABC was a pleading message asking Missis B if I could interview her. To which I got no reply.

SuzyW, i'm the lower end of Highgate Hill. the uh, Archway end. the bit where the air is full of billowing carrier bags. no, the building work in waterlow continues. looking good though hugely adrift from schedule. still wish they'd put a sandpit in the playground though.
Rouge, i hope you luck out with the community midwives at the whit and find you're in the catchment. it's not offered all over islington.
MI, i am due exactly a month today. (OMG.)
I'm not bothering with the ABC either 2nd time around. i remember how we first timers looked at the people who were due to have no2... actually, could hardly look at them, they seemed like another species. so sophisticated, so knowing... i don't think i'd like anyone to look at me like that.
also teachers did peddle a load of cobblers really and, to agree with Suzy W, i felt we were encouraged to have unrealistic expectations; ie, the only people who seemed to be invited back after the birth were people who'd totally free-ranged it IYKWIM. i think some people felt somehow to blame if they didn't end up with the birth they'd expected and the ABC advocated.

Bakedpotato, that team sounds similar to the Kings one I had for dd1. They were fab. Good luck. When's it due?

go for that then, ABC is very irritating second time round actually

Rouge do you remember that woman on the Fast Show who used to sit with her knitting and burst out with a derisory "HUH!", well it was a bit hard not to be like that. Why don't you buy the book and do it at home when you get half an hour, I think there is also an audio cassette and a chart you can get in the shop

Mao Mao - did you really see someone who looked like me? I think I must have a doppleganger as one of my other friends says she keeps seeing me traipsing up and down Highgate hill aswell. And isn't it about time you emailed me some pics of your gogeous dd?????

You mean that wasn't you I saw there the other day???

Oh dear bakedpotato fears I will be stalking her around Highgate Hill

DH did the bedtime routine with DS1, I used to go at the 7pm class and it was waddling distance. But I did find it very tiring actually and only went for three months. And I didn't find it that useful second time. I felt like saying " look it's all very well and good but on the day there's only one thing for certain, you will do anything to get the baby out" I just didn't have the same conviction in the power of aromatherapy massage oil during the second stage IYKWIM, but that's just the view of a jaded woman with one kid already and an emergency c section behind her. First time round I paid an arm and a leg for the Janet Balaskas course.

Suzy, isn't it ridiculously early now for you?

bakedpotato
I am now in Western Australia but I was in Cromwell Place for 10 years, you know just off Cromwell Avenue opposite Waterlow Park - have they finished off all building work by Lauderdale House and the playground yet? I miss Waterlow Park.

Good idea about ABC yoga, although it had changed radically between my two PGs, not the yoga itself, but the marketing for the courses and therapies offered was quite intrusive - often the last 20 mins of the class was spent with a "talk' from one of the practioners in the centre selling their wares. But the yoga and the advice is great - although MotherInferior and I have some alternative theories as to whether or not all that is ideal for expectations for first time mums, but that's another thread

Just a thought but if you sign up for something like antenatal yoga at the active birth centre on Bickerton Rd you will meet lots of other like-minded Mums (and some magnificently mad ones) and get a measure of current local opinion on hospitals. New mums come back with their babies to give a talk on the birth etc and some old-timers are on their third or fourth kids.
ABC is expensive (I think about £11 a go and that was nrly 2 yrs ago) but I thought worth it for the relaxation (and tips).
UCH for me, I recommend it to everyone. It;'s also (the midwives told me) much less busy in terms of numbers of births than the Whittington and Royal Free - many people discount it because of lack of parking and central London location. I was the only person in labour both times I was there !

rouge, do ring the whit/your gp and find out if you're in the catchment for the scheme, the community midwives do homebirths too and i know my mw would have loved for me to have gone for one. save yer pennies if you can.

SW, i'm across the road. off highgate hill. whereabouts were you?

baked potato, I am very very nosey, where abouts round the corner from the Whitt? (don't worry I won't be stalking you )

rouge, whereabouts do you live? i am around the corner from the Whit and as a result have the most rarefied antenatal care imaginable... a community midwife, really nice, who has visited me at home from the first appt. i've only had to go in for scans and early bloods.

she promises me there is a very high chance around 70 pc that she will actually deliver this baby. if not her, her partner, and if not her partner then one of the 12 or so midwives on her team. i am also able to call her at any time and she says when labour starts she will get this come and see me at home/measure me etc and give me guidance about when to go in. then as long as it's not a 24-hourer, she will stay with us for the duration of the labour. this blows my mind. it does sound too good to be true. i'll find out the truth in early feb.

there are apparently maybe 6 similar teams of commuinty midwives in the UK, and this is a new system, just introduced -- maybe a year ago?

i had dd at Royal Free 3 yrs ago. ghastly. no real support during labour, which went unexpectedly fast and because i was written off as inexperienced 1st timer and left to get on with it on my own, i ended up going the whole hog w/o any pain relief (birth plan? they didn't take a look at it. at one stage, i was even told to lay off the gas and air 'as you'll be needing that later' -- this was at the time when i must have been dilating furiously), and frankly sadistic night staff on ward afterwards.

the whit is dirty and horrid but to counter that, the only thing me and DH actually needed during DD's delivery was continuity of care, ie someone in attendance who was slightly interested in us and knew roughly what we wanted. the rest can go hang. and if a crisis emerges, i know from another experience during this pregnancy that the Whit has amazing specialists up its grubby sleeves.

We missed each other completely. I was in Oct 1994, August 1998 and Feb 2004. Miss Henson was wonderful each time.

When were you in ML, we may have passed each other in the corridors? I was in april 2001 and sep 2003

Miss Henson was my consultant. You learn something new all the time. I can boast about that now. Thanks Suzy