hospital woes

We have to do 208 hrs worth of shifts at the hospital, in antenatal clinic, harbison (the maternity ward) and birthing suite. So far I’ve racked up 165 hours. And I have so many more ‘skills’ that I actually need to get ticked off. I’m not sure how I’m going to get it all together in the few weeks I have left. And to make matters worse, I hate it.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. My whole life experiences thus far have predisposed me to a general disliking of hospitals. My family avoids them like the plague, with the exception of the in and outs that we had with my little sister and all of her dramas. Hospital was never a good place to be. In fact, hospital always meant serious, possibly life threatening danger. So with that basis, I was probably never going to like working in a hospital.

Don’t get me wrong, it is much more than I initially gave it credit for, and I guess I also knew that would happen. But seriously, from the initial foundation opinion that I had, there was nowhere to go but up. The doctors are not quite as daft as I initially thought, and actually try to be respectful on occasion. There are some lovely people working there. But everyone has to work according to the system. Including me. And even when the book doesn’t have a code dictating exactly what they should do, they generally pick the safest, or most medicalised option.

I guess what I hate is feeling like I’m part of the system that pushes things on people that they don’t want. That rushes women and doesn’t give them time to just do what they need to do. A system that at a ground level disrespects true informed choice and has a nasty undercurrented biased. I want to escape it already. I want to get out. I know you can be a positive influence in a place like that, and I see many midwives doing so, but it is an environment that makes me want to choke.

And that’s what I’m studying for. Yay me. I guess I just have to keep my eyes on the end goal, which is not Australian hospitals. It’s mums who have no other choices, mums who could lose their babies and mums who have no support.
I had my first catch a few days ago. Everybody made a big hype about their first catch. “You’ll never forget that first baby.” But it’s all hazy to me already. I’m definitely not going to remember it in a few months. And that shocked me. It made me question why I’m really doing this. But then one birth stood out to me. One experience. The only one in fact of this whole year that I think I will remember with crystal clarity. The teenage mum with a hidden pregnancy, the baby she didn’t want and the crisis of her birth. With her, I actually felt like I had something to offer. So maybe I am called to this, just in a different way than the others. Maybe I’m called to the poor and the judged. The sick and the weak and the mentally ill. The unwanted babies and their young frightened mothers.