It's 5am, and we are attending to the now traditional early morning 'maternataxi'.
Two women leave the house, one is obviously pregnant while the other is wheeling the pregnant woman's case.
'Hello', says my crewmate motioning to the pregnant woman, 'You must be our patient'.
The patient nods an affirmative.
'And you', he continues to the woman following, 'you must be her mother'.
'Erm, no', she replies, 'I'm her sister…'
I would like to apologise to all the people in that street for waking them up with my laughter.
My crewmate was a tad embarrassed and of course I didn't let him forget it for the rest of the shift.
He could have said “and you must be the father”
Bollocks. They're producing the generation that'll nick your car, and soak up your tax in benefit payments.
A member of my staff once asked a customer when her baby was due, to which the woman replied “I'm not pregnant”.
One midwife said to my 40 yr old wife a day after the birth of our son, “Are you the grandmother?”. The woman was mortified, she was just used to council estate teenage kids and with their little housing-tokens, er, I mean babies and got confused when she saw a real, grown up person.
heh, I experienced that from the other side.I was 16 and my mum's best friend had just had a baby. It was her third, she had two older daughters aged over 10. It was the first day back from the hospital after her c-section, she was knackered, and I was already experienced and confident with babies, so I was left to feed and change the baby while she went outside with my mum for a coffee and a smoke and a relax.
As I was beginning to change the baby, the door rang and one of the kids went to answer it. Someone came in and hovered in the doorway watching the baby, I assumed it was a relative and said “just a minute” while I deftly en-nappied and babygro-ified the sprog.
Then I looked up to see a midwife/health visitor type person in full uniform, smiling at me and saying “you've got the hang of that quickly! And you're both looking healthy too! How's your scar doing?” I started to try and explain that I wasn't the mum, but the younger sibling got there first with “that's Mary! Mummy's out back having a coffee and a fa-a-ag!” The poor woman's face crumpled.
My due date is next Saturday and my midwife has told me to call an ambulance to take me to hospital if necessary. My husband could be up to 2 hours drive away, I have no family around and my neighbours are elderly. Basically, I don't want to put on anybody and said that if my husband wasn't around I'd call a taxi. “Oh no, you can't do that” came the reply “they won't take labouring women in case they make a mess in the taxi”. Ok, I'll walk, said I. I live about a mile from the hospital and with a wheelie case, I'm sure I'll be fine.Now I get lectured every time I'm seen about not being stupid BUT I am absolutely adamant that 999 will be the last number I will be dialling when the time comes.
So, no maternataxi for me!!!
Many years ago, I was an unmarried, teenage Mum. Yep, everyone hates you, I remember it well. Although I didnt live on a council estate, I remember people in their thirties and forties saying it wasnt fair that slags like me could get knocked up, while decent people like them had to try for ages to have a baby. One good Christian soul said I got pregnant easily because I had an”animal nature” ! (“You do it like animals, so you breed like animals” she said)My little “housing token” is now 43, a Senior Nurse, a hard working mother of three. Im sure you too love being reduced to a stereotype, Stu.
Could you not call ahead to a few taxi firms today and explain when your due date is, that you're happy to pay the soiling fee if necessary, and get one of them to confirm ahead of time that Yes, if you call That Firm in the next couple of weeks they Will take you to hospital?And if one says no, you can call the next at your leisure, rather than calling firm after firm in the midst of your contractions.
Just an idea…
I'm pleased for you.However the girl in the flat downstairs from me has quite happily told me that she spent ages trying to get pregnant so that she could get a flat. She even told me that if I had one I'd have more “points” and would get a downstairs flat sooner so I wouldn't have to struggle with the stairs (I pointed out that struggling with a baby by myself might be a bit much for me as a disabled woman and she said “oh yeah…”)
I don't know which aspect there's more of, and I agree that Stu is wrong to say that all unmarried teenage mums are just after the housing – but the girls who have babies so that the state will provide for them do certainly exist.
there is a taxi company in my area that will take mum to be in labour . they send around they mini bus taxi, that has wipable seats and floor. so if the water break, just get a mop job done.nice to see a good taxi company.
Way I look at it is they're producing the generation that will pay my pension and geriatric care without me having to do the icky childbirth and parenting stuff. Swings and roundabouts.