Call the Midwife is back!

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

This Sunday (17th) at 8pm on BBC1.

I enjoyed the Christmas special - it was good to see Delia back, and I think there's going to be a nice romance with Tom and Barbara

The - it looks like we are going to get a thalidomide story.

Did anyone else think the doctor was going to quietly euthanise baby Susan, all those pointed comments about how she wasn't going to survive the night and Sheila should go home and not get involved? It looked like it was heading that way for a moment to me.

So glad that ep is over, I've been stressing about it for weeks! Susan is a prosthetic doll with a CGI baby's face. She looked amazingly real, so clever what they can do. Just dreading them finding out what's going on, they're bound to feel guilty that it was them giving the women the drug

That was hard going, great episode though, I worked with someone who was told to leave her baby who had been born with spina bifida, she asked what would happen to him, she was told he would be let die as he would never have a normal life, she took him home, her husband left her, he's in his forties now, very well educated, great job and a lovely wife, everytime she mentions his name her face lights up, she battled all sorts of people and authorities so she could raise him herself, her own child, and she bloody did it, I think she's fanbloodytastic

Bf vs ff next week by the looks of it...

I think they do very well at cutting in fun bits with the more serious scenes.

Trixie had definitely noticed Tom and Barbara by the end.

I think the Tom/Barbara/Trixie storyline is going to end with one of the women trying to commit suicide. Probably Trixie. I think she will be going through a secret depression whilst keeping a smile plastered on.

The thalidomide storyline was done with great sensitivity.

I can't imagine being bossed back home to a different country at 24. Such a lack of independence for women.

As a woman, you were told what to do by your parents until you got married.
Then your husband told you what to do.

Meant to add....nuts, isn't it?

What a strong! wonderful and brave ellenanora5. Abandoned by all and with no support but carried on regardless, it must have been terrifying not knowing where you'd live or how to get an income. How awful though her son would have been left to die without her single mindedness.

My mil was a midwife in the east end at the same time as she's told me in the past about babies being 'put aside' (I believe that's how it was phrased). I did think the doctor might be doing this as there was no milk given for a while was there?

I don't think the doctor was going to euthanise the baby, but he'd been told she would probably die and he wasn't going to go in for "heroic" measures to try to keep her going.

FFS, the hatred for Trixie on here is ridiculous. What has she or the actress ever done to any of us?

Don't get the Trixie hatred either. Is it a negative reaction to an attractive female character that speaks up for herself? I know they are usually liked due to being 'gobby' or 'loving themselves'

Trixie isn't annoying me for attractiveness reasons or anything the actress has done but yesterday I was annoyed by the storyline set up where she did this big emotional plea and the nun was converted. It seems to be a bit of a CTMW thing to have business as usual, someone (often Trixie) does something they don't approve of and gets on her high horse, bulldozes along then gives a massive sob story plea and everything is wonderful again. It annoys me because that isn't how lie works, it isn't how you go about changing attitudes. But I suppose for CTMW it has to be all parceled up into a neat hour. So yes I was being annoyed by Trixie and if they keep her as this big lead in driving change then she will probably annoy me even more. Equally if it is one of the other ones who does the pleading next time then it will be her turn to annoy me.

I was born in the 60's with a very small deformity (wrong word- condition may be better) My mother was told to cover me up and in fact, stayed inside for about a month without letting anyone see me. When I caught pneumonia at the age of six weeks, it was hoped I would die as it would be 'a blessing'. Luckily, I didn't! dd2 was also born with the same condition. This time, the doctors simply gave her to me and sad 'oh look the same as you'. I simply treated her as normal; (which if course she is!) and nothing has ever really been said. The difference is amazing.

Shelagh said she'd tried to feed the baby but she wasn't interested. Then Patrick said he'd taken advice from the specialists and they'd said not to force her to feed. It was more that they didn't expect her to want to than they didn't want to IYSWIM.

readyforno2 Love how the programme is progressing YYYYY to this

I can't believe how well they are doing to keep the standard set before, it's brilliant!

I like Trixie more now actually.

Women were all different then as now. DM left home early, joined the army , had me, lived with DF that was in 1951 !! It depends on the person IMO and E.

i like trixie, but think i have missed a chunk of the back story with her & tom. i thought they were engaged but didn't get married as he was headed off to the countryside to a different parish and she couldn't see herself as a village vicars wife, but he's still there in Poplar, so why did they split?, was it the drinking?

I don't understand the hatred for Helen George/Trixie either and I did watch Strictly.

This week's story was heartbreaking - it's just before my eldest brother was born so very real in terms of my lifetime. They handled it really well and sensitively, having gone for the full on story of it affecting all four limbs.

I don't understand why Tom is still around either. I must have forgotten a chunk of the story!

In fact, I tried to convince myself he must be a different character.

Ah right ShelaghTurner I evidently missed that!! I did think it way out of character for him to let the baby died!!! You know I had forgotten that about Tom going away, I'd made it in my head that they'd split due to her drinking.

I thought Trixie and Tom split because he has been talking about his career witht he Bishop and Trixie had all these ideas of them having a nice parish and home and bringing up children in a nice area and so on and Tom had to explain to her than he was a curate and he would go where he was needed and that tended to be the poor places, the rough and run down areas and Trixie's bubble was burst. He had seen her as the perfect wife and she had loved the idea of being a nice vicar's wife and hadn't stopped to consider the reality. I think there was something about her having had a shit background and not wanting that for her children so she had all these ideals and she wasn't prepared to sacrifice that.

Such a moving episode I thought. Loved the actress playing Susan's mum and I did a tiny blub when the dad came round at the end. I can't imagine the huge shock that the parents of babies with thalidomide disabilities must have felt.

Also, I must have missed an episode or two last time as I could have sworn that the Welsh girlfriend of the redheaded nurse had died!

Noooo she didn't die, she got knocked off her bike and had amnesia and her mother took her back to Wales. Of course the girlfriend couldn't remember how important Patsy was and Patsy couldn't tell the mother so she just had to let it go and wait for her to remember.

She had a head injury and amnesia (and made a remarkable recovery - her mum said she couldn't believe it had been 6 months, I couldn't either!).

Trixie's a bit dramatic for my taste - her Oscar keep fit instructor speech was a bit OTT.

Ah I see! The last scene I saw was Patsy crying as she left the flat they'd rented so I assumed Welsh girl had died. I presume now that she's moving into Nonnata's there will be a scandalising scene where they're caught in flagrante.

I'm a bit indifferent to Trixie although sometimes her sweeter than sugar voice can irritate me. She's good in scenes where she's being more emotional and less peppy, like ages ago when she was recalling her childhood and her father's depression.