Another find.

Having sorted out my workroom, I’ve now moved on to the challenge of the ‘old photographs’. There are two large storage containers in B’s study. The first one to be retrieved has a number of yellow Kodac envelopes with pictures and strips of negatives. I had a search through and found this picture from my midwifery days.

This entry should be titled Christmas ‘67. It was taken on Christmas Day by a member of staff using my camera. The babies had been born the previous evening, delivered by me. The unit was run by midwives, with medical support from the women’s GP. We had 18 beds, so a small unit, mostly ladies having their second or subsequent delivery. We had one delivery room and rarely had more than one new baby arriving each day.

I was the only qualified midwife on a late shift on that Christmas Eve when two young women were admitted in established labour. How do you manage to deal with that scenario? With some difficulty, but the help of two calm  nurses one to support each woman, an extra bed in the delivery room and a screen to provide privacy. I managed to deliver the first baby, who cried straight away, before the second baby arrived safely a short while later.

When I woke the next morning I felt that it had all been a dream, I took my camera on duty with me to have a record of the event. I did ask the mums permission to take the picture. 

The date of processing and printing of this picture is April 68, details on the back. In those days you only saw the results of your photography skills after the film was processed .....a long time later.

Reflecting on this event raises many questions which I haven’t addressed here. It all went well in the end, but could have been a disaster.