After tweeting that I was going to hear Baby 2.0, thanks to the sheet ice on the road, Beth went on her own to the surgery, and I only got to hear the recording.
However they do say that live is always better than recorded, and that was what we got today, with the first specialist appointment at Frimley Park. After the complications with gestational diabetes Beth had to have an appointment to get booked in for two glucose tests, the results of which will determine how many more appointments and ultra-sound scans we will have during the rest of the pregnancy, and ultimately when baby 2.0 is born. The due date is officially 14th June, but if the diabetes returns, as it is expected to, the birth will be induced early.
Having said that, it does look like the trips to the hospital will be a little bit less of a hassle as after leaving early to take account of the usual vast queue to get into the chaos of the hospital car park, we got in really easily, and even got one of the big spaces that make it a lot easier to get Lucy in and out of the car. At first I thought it was just that it was the time of year, but it turns out that it wasn’t only that…
As far as possible we’ve always tried to get morning appointments at the hospital, because you can usually get into the car park – although it’s often busy, you can usually get a space. In the afternoons it has always been absolute chaos, with the queue for the car park stretching out onto the road outside. The problem has always seemed to be around the couple of hours of visiting of an afternoon. Aside from one or two exceptions, all the hospital visiting is in two blocks, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening, so in the afternoon you have visitors cars and patients heading to clinics all competing for spaces. According to the sign coming into the hospital today they seem to have finally taken heed of the problems, and afternoon visiting is only available on the weekends, during the week visiting is limited to the evening only. We’ll have to see whether it helps as we go through this pregnancy.
And before anyone mentions the importance of visitors, and how inconvenient it will be to only have evening visiting, I am well aware of that, but short of building a bigger car park, or introducing park and ride – especially with parking charges for hospitals looking like they will be abolished, it is more important that patients are able to park.
