Lockdown Thoughts

It's not the first time I've made this comment but wow, where did that year go since I last wrote on here? And so much has happened in that year too. I completed a PGCert and got a new job, that's fairly big news I guess! I took up a post of Midwifery Lecturer for the University of Brighton last September, bringing to an end my permanent role at my local Trust as a hospital midwife. I feel like I could write a whole post about that transition and probably will sometime (hopefully not in a years time again). I still work monthly short shifts for a few reasons.. one being I love being a midwife and can't imagine not being able to give care in that way. Another is short shifts are SO much better for my physical health, my back got to such a point that I have not been out of pain for over 3 years (and that is possibly a post for another day too - short story however - I found a Chiropractor and it's been amazing). And of course, being in clinical practice while lecturing is a great way of maintaining that contact with the reality of the shop floor so to speak. I'm not incognisant of the fact that at some point I will do less but for now I'm finding a balance that fits.

Although of course, you know, lockdown happened.

And so here I am, still working my university job but now from home. Skype and Microsoft Teams have become my primary way of communicating with my students and my team. Virtual meetings are simply not the same, there is less cake for a start. But COVID-19 has brought an avalanche of challenges to student midwifery and we are feeling it at all ends of the spectrum. Students are worried about so many things (on top of the worries about health common to us all), placement, finances, academic work and degree classifications, European directives for clinical experience, PPE, changes to supervision. It is overwhelming. They work so hard, make no mistake about it, healthcare students experience university on a completely different level to non-healthcare workers in terms of combining placement and academic work with homelife, social life (haha) and personal development. I make no apology for that assertion. So adding COVID-19 seems to have created a bit of a pressure cooker for these issues and as lecturers we are doing what we can to support but with relative uncertainties in the system, that has challenges of its own.

I then felt that I should be offering to work clinically and so I have been doing 2 short shifts per week now at the hospital working on labour ward/triage (thats like an A&E for pregnant people) and the postnatal ward. It's difficult to know where to start when talking about what it is like there now. The team spirit is very much there. I think the relief of human contact is standing in the gap created by terror that we are essentially on the front line. We have to treat everyone as if we suspect them of having COVID-19 for both thiers and our protection. To do this means at the very least covering our mouths, eyes and hands.

As midwives (and for most other health care workers) we rely so heavily on our smiles and the ability to touch. As midwives we work with our hands so much. Blue gloves might not seem much to you but they represent that loss of connective touch. I find myself telling women that I am smiling... "I promise"! The first time I wore complete PPE to care for a person with a known risk of COVID-19, I felt panicky, like I couldn't breathe behind the mask, the full gown made my whole body feel hot and sweaty but I had to go into the room having 'donned' and saw the woman looking at me, her eyes searching mine for some sort of reassurance. In that split second you just feel all that slip away. She is a woman in need of care. She is everything I trained for and signed up for. I talk, I move around the room and do my best to be business as usual and finally I see her start to relax. 

Maternity feels like it is rapidly changing. We get new directives almost every day. Things change... partners, birth, theatre, PPE, paperwork. But in the middle of all of this the needs of the women and thier babies are unchanged. Weirdly I have found this to be incredibly reassuring. I caught two babies on a weekend and despite the donning and doffing, I could have cried with the sheer normalcy of it. Babies are born. Families are made and changed. Life goes on.

I worry about going to the hospital. It feels like I am putting my family at risk. I rationalise it with all the advice we are given, no hugging them until I've essentially put myself through a boil wash, anti-bac everything, not forgetting my pens and ID card. But I know I am far safer than the ICU and ward nurses, doctors and HCAs who are exposing themselves to frightening levels of the virus all the time. My children I feel have a greater appreciation of the NHS now (I'll make labour supporters out of them yet) and their concern for others, thier freinds, our family, people in hospital, the community is amazing. Children are amazing. They have had thier worlds tipped upside down. I can forgive them for being a bit ambivalent about homeschooling!

And in the middle of all of this is faith. I don't know how I would have got this far without a complete anxiety meltdown if I didn't have that assurance that I am not alone. Psalms 3 and 4 help me sleep, Joshua 1:9 gives me courage, Psalm 90 brings me back down to earth and 2 Corinthians 4:8 gives me hope. I reckon I've read my Bible more in the past 3 weeks than in the 3 months before that. My anxiety levels feel at a record low. God is still good. He was good yesterday and He'll still be good tomorrow. I'm loving the explosion of rainbows on my social media feeds. The rainbow in this context feels so much more congruent to me - it is a promise. There might be a raging river, but we will not be overwhelmed by a flood because He promised he wouldn't do that again.

I think that's it for now. Planning to update a bit more regularly again now (that I've remembered my password). In the meantime, stay home and stay safe!