Being a maternity consumer

After describing my experience of feeling like a student again in my previous post I have recently found myself on the receiving end of maternity care. My grandson was born a few weeks ago and I had the priviledge of being present for his labour and birth. While not everything went to plan, the experience was positive yet exhausting, nerve racking yet exhilerating, weird yet also surreal. Weird from the perspective that I was watching my child have his own child, exhilerating because I  felt the same surge of love that I felt when having my own children and exhausting because there is so much emotional energy required for the mum to birth her beautiful baby and the support people to really be there to support her.
It has done me the world of good to be on the other side of maternity care and has reminded me how important it is for midwives and doctors to never underestimate the power of listening to the women and her support people and making them feel safe to express their concerns. How easy it is to think we know better but how vulnerable you feel when you are the consumer. Even with the knowledge of my profession & my own experiences, I still felt vulnerable. This surprised me and I was a little taken aback by my own vulnerability. Funny how that emotional tie adds another dimension.
Thankfully though we received respectful, collaborative care from maternity health professionals that made us feel safe and listened to and for that I am eternally grateful - thank you Redcliffe Maternity Unit and thank you to the staff, you were amazing and I feel priviledged to work with you.

What were your experiences? Have you felt vulnerable as a consumer and what would you like to see health professionals do to help reduce some of this vulnerability?

Remembering what it feels like to be a student

I have started a new role this week in health informatics. I am hoping to learn new knowledge, fine tune my IT skills and learn alot more about the organisation in which I work. Whilst I knew the new role would be challenging, I have been quite surprised at how out of my depth I have felt. I feel quite useless and don't enjoy not being able to quickly solve problems. It is taking me a long time (in my eyes) to get my head around all the different systems, spreadsheets and jobs.
It has made me reflect on how our students must feel when they start a new course. Some of the students come from high level positions where they are used to being in charge and I think this may make the transition to student even harder.
Whist it is only my first week, I have to learn to sit in this new role and appreciate that I won't always know what to do, that feeling like I know nothing is part of learning and that having to ask for help often is OK - its what I tell my students but somehow it is much harder to  swallow when you are this side of the lesson.
All up it has been a positive yet sobering experince so far to be back in what feels like a student position and I will remember this feeling when I return to my Midwifery education position to help me improve my teaching. I think it is humbling to swap positions every once in a while to appreciate another point of view. How have you handled this situation. What lessons did you learn?