Whipps Cross Hospital – My NHS Experience (Part 3)

We’re making progress! I had my phone consultation with a midwife from Whipps Cross Hospital on Thursday and I cannot tell you how much better we feel about sticking with the NHS for the duration of our pregnancy.

We had a lovely woman ring (Swee Harris is her name), bang on time, and went through everything in so much detail, she:

• explained that I would be getting a new file and therefore my first appointment would be at Whipps Cross Hospital to get my height, weight and to test my urine and blood, as well as pick up my file.
• made sure I was taking Pregnacare and told me which one to continue taking after baby arrives.
• explained that I would need to do another urine test. The one I did in Feb that came back with a UTI, was probably contaminated, especially as I was asymptomatic and that I shouldn’t worry. This happens a lot apparently. I will need to do another straight after having a shower and catch it midstream to reduce the risk of contamination.
• assured us there was parking on site and gave detailed instructions on how to find the right building (though we have since found a map online).
• asked us if we were ever told the positions of my fibroids. Now considering the sonographer at Newham Hospital couldn’t be bothered to answer our questions about what a fibroid was, we didn’t get any further information that now seems to be quite important… Our new midwife reassured us again and said she’d book us in for another scan, on the same day as my first appointment, so they could check baby’s heartbeat, growth, position, as well as the position of my fibroids.
• will book us in for a new glucose tolerance test, so I should cancel the one booked through Barking Birth Centre.
• confirmed when I’ll be booked in for future appointments: at 28, 31, 34, 36, 38, 40, and if baby is late, 41 weeks.
• gave us a link for online antenatal classes, taken by the lady who usually does the classes at the hospital.
• told us to call our GP and find out if they can give whooping cough vaccines at the moment, but said we have until 32 weeks to have this done, and by then, the hospital may well be doing vaccines once more, so we could wait if we’d prefer.
• will send me leaflets as well as the exemption forms for me to sign and send off, so I get free medication and dental until baby is 1.
• lastly, she told us how they run the maternity unit in the community through, the Opal Team (a team of midwives) who have two venues where we will have all midwife appointments, assuming no complications, and postnatal checks. We were also given an emergency 24hr number to call, should we have any worries throughout the rest of our pregnancy.

On Friday, the same midwife rang to confirm she had sent us all leaflets, forms and appointment letters as promised, and to let us know she had booked us in for everything on Tuesday 1^st June! This was a lot sooner than I expected and I’m excited to meet her, but also to see the hospital and those who work there. Hopefully, we get a good first impression that backs up the great impression Swee has given us thus far.

I’ll keep you posted.

Mrs. A

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