Call the Midwife

[ilovecarbs90]

Is back 18th April. I'm so glad we are getting a series this year, I find it such great escapism.

Is anyone else a fan?

That was heartbreaking. Poor parents.

I hated the description of the adoption nursery as a happy place.

Teenage boyfriend said he'd either just started or was about to start a new job, with day release for college.
I think they could have made a go of it. Obviously very very hard without support of their own parents.
It was brutal though, awful.

The test strip used to test the nappy were not invented in the mid1960’s. They came into use in the 1970’s, which explains the several references in previous programmes to ‘boiling the urines’ in the ante-natal clinics.

Did the teenaged father not have any rights?

@SpindleWhorl

Will Dr Turner invent the internet and cloning tonight?

Ha ha! I thought digital records! And ultra sound scans too.

I think Miss Higgins knew they would never get the bracelet back if she wasn't fast.

He was right though... His father saw stuff he would never see, and Tim would experience stuff his father never dreamed off.
Like a worldwide pandemic... (Although realistically Tim would be retired now... NextGen Dr Turner?)

MAybe no one knows the answer to this but ....legally, did Jeanette not have to give consent for the adoption? Could that woman really just walk out with Oliver in 1966?

I’d be more impressed by Dr Turner’s prowess if he noticed as to how the widower babby is already teething and yet the yay sisters and silentTeddy have not aged a day since 1962. (Approx)

Wasn’t that the papers that Miss Higgins came in for her to sign?

Poor wee souls.

@jay55

I love Trixie's suit, worry the baby is going to splodge it with chocolate.

Ha! No one’s getting close enough to anyone else for that to happen!

@StylishMummy

Breast binding

They did this in 1980 to mothers who chose not to breastfeed.

Ah thanks Sheldon. I thought she was signing up for the mother and baby home rather than signing the adoption papers. Bless her.

Okay. Just finished watching.
Hands up who didn’t predict Shelagh diagnosing PKU after telling her students about it that very morning?

Oh crikey - that may have been what she signed. I don’t know and can’t remember.

@JinglingHellsBells I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a choice. It nearly happened to my brother born in 72. My mum was 16 and my grandparents had all the say, my mum had no rights at all. My a dad only found out my brother was born because my mums younger sister told him behind her parents back. And the only reason my DB wasn’t adopted was because him and my mum both nearly died and he was kept in the neonatal ward for several weeks during which time my grandparents told the hospital he was being adopted and they refused to let either of my parents see him. He was 10 days old before they finally relented and my mum was allowed to see him. Because of the long hospital stay my Dad and paternal grandparents who traveled across the country to intervene put up a huge fight, eventually my mums parents backed down. If the pregnancy had been straight forward my grandparents would have had my brother adopted before my dad even knew he was born and my mum would have had absolutely no say in it.

Did someone say upthread maybe it wasn't the end of the adoption story? Sadly I think it was, they don't usually carry a storyline on for a further episode.

Alice that's a very moving story. We've become so accustomed to rights, haven't we, yet not so long ago things were very different.

I know a woman who was born in the early 70s to a teenage mum but thought her grandparents were her parents until she was 18.

Even now, the children of the teenage parents I know are largely brought up by their grandparents, albeit with less secrecy

I think she did just sign the mothers' and baby home papers. She would have had no say in the adoption.

These stories are getting very predictable.

“Let’s talk about PKU ladies”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with this child”
“Could it be PKU Patrick?”
“Yes of course!”

i thought they were going to shoe autism in there

I think Shelagh needs to go off and train to be a doctor!

binglebong

To have no say at all

Horrific.

The contrast between Timothy just about to go off to study medicine and his former fellow 'Scout' about to become a father (and then having his baby taken away from him). So sad.

Loved the cheese-plant (were they even a thing back in the 60s?) being a friendship not love token to Trixie. Anyone like to guess how many more episodes it will be before she and the widower give in to their feelings (just like something out of a Mills & Boon novel!)?