It’s an EMERGENCY!

Now, don’t get me wrong; I love my children with all my heart, and count myself wholly blessed to have them. However, when you have just finished a stint of being the human equivalent of Daisy the dairy cow and you STILL haven’t had a full nights sleep in over four years, this is the kind of information that can strike fear into the best of us!

What do I do?       What do I do?!

It has been said that people react in peculiar ways in stressful situations, and as it turns out I am no different!

Ring…. Ring….         Ring …..Ring……..

Receptionist: Hello Village Medical Practice.
Me: Hello! My name is Louise Samuel-Napier, I need an emergency appointment….today!
Receptionist: Can I ask the nature of the emergency?
Me: I just found out I’m PREGNANT!
Receptionist: Hmm…do you definitely need an EM..ERG..EN..CY appointment?
Me:  Yes! Yes I DO!
Receptionist: Err, ok…. Well…. Dr. Crawford has an ‘urgent only’ appointment at 2:45pm?
Me :  Great, I’ll take it!

Like, seriously! I can’t say that this was responsible use of our NHS, nor do I remember what I was expecting him to do. Un-diagnose my self-diagnosis perhaps? But, just as I was hanging up the phone, a feeling of absolute trepidation washed over me.

“I’ve been helping with X-Rays! Cleaning out kennels! LITTER TRAYS! And perched right beside that dammed anesthetic machine! Oh this is not good!”

So, for the second time that day, I packed my poor children into the car, and off we went, this time to the Doctor. After a wait that seemed to go on forever (allowing my two youngsters to successfully litter the waiting room with NHS leaflets whilst reception staff looked on disapprovingly at my poor attempts to regain some control over the little vandals, it was finally our turn to go in. After an exhaustive rant to Crawf (as he is affectionately known in our family) of all the things I had done in work in the past 4 weeks, and how some of the time “I wasn’t even wearing gloves!” and with my PhD in Google reeled off all the harmful effects this could have on an unborn child.

Eventually he broke his silence. “Now, Louise,” he said in a calm, reassuring tone “some of these examples to which you are referring are incredibly rare, and, most of them, I have not come across in practice. I have plenty of patients who are vets and vet nurses who have worked during pregnancy, and, going forward, if you take the necessary precautions at work, it should be fine.”

I can’t honestly say that this made my concerns disappear overnight but mostly I did try to keep things in perspective; still, you and I both know ‘necessary precautions’ in a mixed veterinary practice could realistically include anything from putting on a glove to wearing full American football attire and carrying a personal oxygen supply.

Behind Closed doors.
When the ‘sh1t’ hits the fan, apparently I come across as calm and level headed(at least to the outside world), but in fact this could not be further from the truth. Indeed what my coping mechanism generally involves is having a series of short but dramatic melt downs, in the security of my own home, preferably when my children are asleep so no one else other than my poor unsuspecting husband can see. Then, once the amateur dramatics have come to a close, I try to remind myself of all the positive factors in the situation, then go to bed in the hope that it will all look better in the morning.

So true to form I waited until my husband returned from work to cry uncontrollably and repeatedly tell him how, it was all his fault (obviously!) until I eventually calmed down and came to the conclusion that, as we had always wanted three children, it was, in fact, a GREAT idea!

I could literally talk myself in or out of anything, but getting out of this one wasn’t an option, so in it was.