This week has been a bit of a blur, we've had lots of friends visit us!
First the final lot of midwives came on monday to "sign" us off. They were happy that things were going well. Next we had my friends from work visit us for lunch - slightly bad timing of the next visitor who turned out to be the health visitor - more on her later. It was good to see some friends from the office. I'm also glad to say I dont miss the office one bit at the moment - I'm pretty content being at home and being a mum to Emily. The guys popped over to check emily out and bring us some food and pressies from the office. Oh and I do love pressies! The office gave kindly organised a collection and we received a fair amount of money to purchase any needed items and goodies for our new little bundle.
Now onto irritating Health Visitors. Our one turned up right in the middle of my friend visit, and being direct as I am I asked if we could speed things up so I could get back to my visitors. Not a rude request I thought I mean all she had to do was give us our little red book, hand over some leaflets and weigh Emily. Oh no she had to launch into her patronising speach all about health visitors and their professional backgrounds - to be honest I really dont care, I had to point it out to her that I already had a 9 year old and therefore have already been through their system and I knew all about what they did and their training. Then onto the next thing - for the 5th time I've been asked "and how are you feeding her bottle or breast?" - I have to admit I have no patience for fools - something of a gift sometimes as I find it really easy to tell people who annoy me to leave me alone and sharpish! Drew appreciates this when we get cold callers trying to sell him new mobile phones or double glazing - we've come up with several ploys such as "oh yeah I'm actually dead please leave your message after the tone - beep", or my new tactic as we've had 2 companies call us within the space of 2 minutes is to be nice in their first call and tell them "sorry not interested in your offer" and then when they call again I tell them how annoying they are and they are to remove my number from their database and never call again otherwise I'll start charging them for my time.
Anyway I digress from the Health Visitor scene earlier. Maybe I should point out to all these health professionals that they should make a note of my answers and share their info with each other - surely it would make sense and they could cut down on the amount of time they spend repeating banal questions. She duly noted that I wasn't impressed with her bedside manner and then tried the tactic of using her psychology training to ask "if I had a bad experience with a previous health visitor" - I pondered this for a while, to be honest I couldn't remember my last health visitor. So I just said "yes" to lull her into a false sense that she was right. Next banal question "so do you think you'll pop down to the clinic before your 6 week check up?" - I answer "no". I resist the urge to add in "not if I can help it!". What the heck do I want to pop down for - I have no questions to ask, I have no problems that need resolving and if I did I would ask, I would seek advice. I would speak to my lovely team of midwives who have taken the time and care to get to know both Drew and me over the last 9 months. I would speak to the team of Doctors and consultants who have understood our concerns and have been straight talking with us and treated us like adults with brains. Pfffft - hissy fit!
When I spoke to Tosha this week it became clear why the HV would want me to visit the clinic - they want to ask more stupid questions such as "is your partner beating you, or are you a victim of domestic abuse?". I also understand from Tosha that they want me to play child psychology like games and fill in questionnaires about my happiness - sheesh! Are you A) happy, B) very happy or C) very sad? I find these things tedious.
