Moved house to a new area - having lots of trouble getting a new midwife!

[rosemarycait96]

Hi all,

I'm 22 weeks pregnant. Moved house 2 weeks ago to a completely new area, so of course need to register with the midwives in my area.

I registered with the GP this week. I asked them how to get in touch with the local maternity services, they gave me a number. I called the number and it took me to a completely automated call menu advising me to fill out the booking form online. I filled out the booking form, even though it's definitely for your very first appointment - it's the same one I filled out for my old area when I first registered at all.

I did mention on the form that it's not my first appointment and that I'm 22 weeks pregnant.

But I received a letter today inviting me for my 'booking appointment', with all the stuff about taking folic acid and quitting smoking+caffeine that you get when you're at the start of pregnancy. It seems like they've booked me in for a typical 2 hour first appointment, but is this right?

There is absolutely no phone number anywhere for me to actually speak to a human about this, it's all on that automated number. So it seems I have to go to this booking appointment and kindly inform them that I'm in fact 22 weeks pregnant and don't need any advice on screenings or a 12 week scan 😂

Did anyone else have this amount of faff trying to register in a new area? I'm doing exactly what my old midwife told me to do as she knew I was moving away, but is there something else I should have done?

I'm so worried about showing up in 2 weeks to my 'booking' appointment and the midwife being very confused about a lady with a huge bump showing up!

(Sorry that was long-winded, I'm a bit of a waffler)

Sounds like the best thing to do is find the number of your local maternity unit and give them a call. It’s easy to get lost in the system when it comes to forms.

Not the same issue, but this time around I didn’t contact the midwife until 10 weeks or so, and they were so helpful. They saw me the next day and got me all booked in for appointments and scans etc.

You need to book in with the new midwife. Each area has their own computer system so you'll need a booking appointment to enter all the info.

I needed to have a booking appointment when I moved area pregnant. They retook all my bloods and measurements again because they said they had to follow their own systems. I also had the big list of questions to answer again. Wasn't as long as the original booking appointment but definitely repetitive.

@RainbowsMoonbeams That's my issue, this is the only number I've been able to find for the midwifery team. The letter I received tells me if I need to query the appointment in any way, to call that number - but it's the same number that gives me the automated message telling me to book online. After that it just hangs up 😂

@SugerNiner So this is the right appointment then? Am I right in thinking I should just go, and everything will go from there?

@Raggeo ah okay, makes more sense now. So I suppose I should go to this appointment and they'll go through all the usual stuff with me and get me on their system?

It seems odd that there's no other way of doing it, but that's the way it is I suppose.

I'll be taking my notes and everything with me anyway, so hopefully they can use those too. I'll also be contacting my old midwifery team to transfer me over since that's what they told me to do.

My first mw team transferred all their notes and info but it didn't seem to make a difference. I just went along with it and the good thing was that the new MWs were able to see me within a couple of weeks of having transferred. I would have been more concerned if I had been waiting for ages.

@Raggeo Good to hear it worked out okay for you in the end. Luckily the appointment is only in 12 days. My 25 weeks appointment has already been booked in with my old midwife, but hopefully the new team will be able to get me in soon enough...

Thanks all for your clarity and patience. Pregnancy brain, house-moving brain and work is crazy at the moment, plus my SIL recently became a missing person and we are constantly in touch with the police about that - so TLDR, I'm unbelievably stressed these days and struggling to make sense of all of this life admin. Grateful to have MN people to be my sounding board today.

Sounds like you have a lot on your plate💐

I am a midwife and yes we would need to do the whole booking over again. I know it's very frustrating but the systems between trusts don't really "talk" to each other 😬

@PillowySoft thank you, I thought that was hopefully the case! I work with NHS trusts regularly as part of my job and it's unsurprising to see that I have to go through the entire booking process again to get on their books.

The identical booking letter has me feeling combination of confused and amused, reading that I 'will be between 9 and 11 weeks' at my 'first appointment'. Most definitely am not. My son is kicking me in the bladder and reminding me of that. 😅

If it makes you feel any better, I had to go to my booking in appt at 34 weeks pregnant 😂

Yes, I moved areas at 30 weeks and had a whole new booking appointment, new paperwork and everything. Refused booking bloods and asked them to take the results off my previous set of notes, and obviously wouldn't have gone along with any attempt to weigh me and do my BMI based on that (they didn't try though). Overall the long appointment felt like quite a good opportunity to ask questions about how maternity services work in my new area, so I was happy.

@TheOtherBoleynGirls Oh wow! 😂

@LordMooey Oh gosh I didn't even think about the being weighed/measured/whatever'd part of it. My BMI was skirting the overweight category when I went in for my first appointment at 9 weeks and I have gone up about 2 dress sizes (in addition to baby bump of course) since then. I'll try and resist being put on the scales if they ask... Don't mind bloods being redone, but if they can take that from my previous notes that would be better.

I moved house at 38 weeks and had to go through the booking process again including repeating the blood tests!

I moved at 32 weeks with DC1 and made 12 phone calls. I was also with the perinatal mental health team and obstetrician in my previous trust but didn’t qualify in the new one because I wasn’t schizophrenic or bipolar (their words). So I lost a huge part of my support network. Worked out absolutely fine though.
I’ve just contacted them about booking appointment for my second pregnancy and they legitimately apologised that because I live where I do I’ll get less than ideal care. My geographically closest hospital is 45 minutes away but not technically in my trust, the “local” one is 90 minutes away…