A Second Guest Post from Kevin Bampton - BABY……

Like the baby this post is later than planned.

My partner Sally gave birth to our fourth child, Elsa, at 4.33 on 6^th May this year.

As ever the Midwives of Portsmouth excelled themselves with their level of care and understanding. They dealt with Sally and me with care, understanding and respect for our wishes. Sally had very specific ideas for the birth and had birth plans for pretty much any eventuality, from the preferred home birth all the way through to an emergency caesarean section.

As with the previous births we have not been straightforward or ordinary in our approach, but after some initial eyebrow raising, and a bit of pushing and talking to the right people on our part, our ideas were honoured and respected.

99% of the people we dealt with were behind us 100%. Thumbs up for that!

Labour was all over the place during the weekend, with contractions coming and going at random intervals and intensities and, with three other children around, ridiculously exhausting. The decision was made by Sally that she couldn’t continue. She was physically and mentally drained and felt she needed a caesarean section.

We contacted the midwives who immediately agreed for her to go in to Queen Alexandra Hospital.

We dropped our other children off at their grandmother’s house and went on to the hospital.

We found she was in a queue for surgery and had several hours to wait before the doctors could get to her. During this time she was in the care of Lisa and (I think) Merida.  They respectfully did their job, not getting in the way or bothering us unnecessarily.

Finally the anaesthetist arrived to discuss the operation with Sally. Our daughter decided this was the moment she would begin to put in some serious effort into being born naturally.

The next hour was the most amazing feat of human endurance I have ever witnessed.  With gentle but firm coaching to my exhausted partner from Lisa and Merida Sally delivered Elsa safely and naturally, to much joy in the room.

A big thumbs up to Lisa and Merida for their amazing care and incredible professionalism.

Elsa was welcomed home by her brother Seth and her sisters Freya and Astrid.

With the cutbacks on staff and resources within the NHS this is a valuable reminder of the kindness, compassion and humanity of the staff who have contact everyday with the people they signed up to help.

These people are why we should resist any attempt to privatise our NHS. 

~~~~

Also, Everdayfolk would like to make an apology; this post is even later than Kevin intended due to a "hiccup" our end.  

Kevin Bampton - Portsmouth 

 http://kevinbampton.wordpress.com/

@Hoodedman_art

no power or heat but the team were on hand to help

You know what they say, it never rains but.....

Sometime during the night, (it turns out at 2:00 am), our power went out so we woke Sunday morning to no heat or power.  Not the best timing for personal reasons since we are a bit bed/house bound at the moment but we called a company called UK Power Networks (think they used to be known as Eastern Power) about getting back on line.

Tina

We'd done all the fuse checks and things like that so Tina, who took our first call was really helpful and nice on the 'phone and said she would check the local status and call us back in ten minutes.  She did just that and said that they hadn't got any sign of outages in the area so does look like just us and would get someone out to us straight away.  So a big thank you and thumbs up to Tina  .

Lee - DST

Within about forty minutes of her call, Lee, the first DST (engineer to you and me) turned up and did some tests. 

He confirmed there was no power at our house so went away to check at the local sub-station.  No, he came back the problem wasn't there so they were going to have to get a team with a digger to dig the street up.

This was only moment where communication went a tiny bit awry.  We were told half an hour but two hours later we called Mark {picture of Mark maybe to follow - fingers crossed} who said he would look into it.  We got cut off and while we were waiting for him to call back I then got in touch with UK Power Networks via twitter.

Well everything took off at the same moment!

The team started turning up in the street; first to arrive were Lewis (on the right - who was in bed with the flu the night before) and Clayton (on the left) from Morrison Utility Services with a digger.  I was a bit worried when they arrived when they started marking up the garden on where to dig but they couldn't have been more considerate of my plants and worked around the "death trap" of a plum tree.   So a big thumbs up and thank you to both and, Clayton, hope your back gets better and Lewis, look after that cold and, don't forget, any time you want to help out at the allotment you're more than welcome!

Lee - twitter

Meanwhile, Mark called back with a very helpful update on what we could expect and when.  Simultaneously to this, Lee on twitter started sending me DMs with really helpful, up to the moment updates.  Thank you both Mark and Lee and

Jack and Mick

At one point there were seven vehicles outside (including the digger).  From UK Power Networks were Mick, (the guv'n - standing), Jack (Sitting down on the job - that's for his kids!) - who has two cats with some problems I recommended Liquid Garlic for - 





and Dave - who I've promised this isn't a dating site.   We also had a very nice man, (who I failed to get his name or picture - shame on me), who must have been a civil engineer or something as he had the local up to date plans showing the other utilities in case they needed to dig outside our property.  Thanks and thumbs up to you all

Dave

Luckily around three o'clock in the afternoon, just as the temperature was really dropping and it was getting too dark for anything, Lee (DST) came back with some gear and they managed to give us temporary power via a "loop" off our lovely neighbour's outside supply.  So a thank you and thumbs up to Lee .

Clayton

Lewis

They all worked on until just after six p.m. when we got back our power.  Great job.  (Big holes left in the path etc but promises for a follow up team to come the next day to fill them all in.).

Have to say, first dealings with UK Power Networks but am very impressed with the level of service and smiles from all. 

Thank you. 

******

   

ps - unfortunately the follow up team to fill the holes who came two days later, (from W**** - you know who you were) weren't in the same class and indeed scarpered without even knocking on the door to check all was okay or doing what they said they would do.