Grey hessian, anyone?

Today was my first day shadowing my community midwife. She turned up, all mad hair and cackly laugh and immediately pretend-shrieked at a huge spot pretending to be My Third Eye, smack bang in the middle of my forehead. I fell for her immediately. We trundled off in her ancient Ford and started our rounds.

I should stop here and reveal a secret: I'm not mad keen on babies. That may sound like heresy of the most heinous and evil kind, but really, being a midwife is about supporting the mother and her family and helping them achieve the most positive birth experience possible. Babies are the equivalent of Sean Connery in Robin Hood here: a cameo role, right at the end, that makes the whole thing just that bit better (but without the take-me-now sexiness). I mean, I like babies - I'm just not obsessed with them. And boy, they fucking hate me. Kids love me, as I am more than prepared to get into a serious conversation about Batman or whether there are fish under the sofa (and I don't use a stupid high pitched voice when I talk to them). But babies - they scream as soon as I come within a five mile radius. If I attempt to touch them, they try to throw themselves off the changing mat. They skip ten years of development and spontaneously start dialling ChildLine if I do any stupid cooing thing.

Until today. I don't know what it is about that chafey ex-Siberian prison camp inmate grey hessian sack the bods at How-Can-We-Make-Our-Student-Midwives-Look-Their-Ugliest University decided we have to wear, but it worked wonders. I held babies. They didn't cry. They didn't screw their faces up into walnuts. Two went to sleep. One farted loud and long and then did a grin (a farty grin, not a real grin). It was great. I felt warm and funny and...shit!

I think I just started loving babies.




In other news: I saw a strangers vagina today. Just like mine. Not as odd a feeling as I expected.