h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi there expat,

I'm Bel and I live in Frakfurt, Germany. There are a few expats here, there's Sho and Trillian's Child, for expamle. We had a German mini meet in April, you can read the report here:
A11449028

Bel

Hi,
Wow someone else over here - still a bit of a journey from Frankfurt.
How long have you been in Germany? - I am sure that info is on your site but I am a newby here so don't know the ropes very well.

I was born here, in other words: I am German
And I don't think it's mentioned on my site somewhere, although it's not a secret, and my friends know it
Don't worry about being a nebie and not knowing the ropes, if you hang around here regularly, you'll learn them all too soon

Getting the hang of this place - the map thing is great - saw you there B'Elana, Not able to put myself on yet as it didn't want to load hameln properly. I will try again later.

I really should ask Bagpuss to remove me _ I'm too stupid to handle the map, so put myself hundreds of kilometers from where I actually am

Where are you exactly? _ I still cannot get it to load over Hameln, it gets as far as Dortmund but stops there - just a wasteland after that.
Perhaps the map is trying to tell me something!!

I'm in Frankfurt, and I didn't manage to zoom in n exactly the right distance to even discover Frankfurt - so I mad a guess and ended in some unknown to me forest dsome three or four hundred kilometers south east of Frankfurt
I haven't tried since.

Still havent succeeded myself - I may just make a stab in the dark and hope it ends up somewhere close!
Was at a paediatric conference today so feel a bit tired after sitting and listening for so long - -meetings etc sometimes feel harder work tham rushing around - do you find that?

Yes, I find that, too, getting older and having to sit somewhere and concentrate for hours makes me very tired, I'm no longer used to it.
Are you a paediatric nurse? My friend Matt U168592 is a paediatric nurse somewhere near Beeston, he's just started some further studies, so isn't online very often.

Hi,
I am actually a Midwife but the paediatric lectures had a lot of subjects pertinant to midwifery. It was a mixture of British and German lecturers so was really very interesting - the chairs were a bit hard though after a number of hours.

Uuuh, I can imagine that the chairs were too hard for sitting on them for long, you have my sympathy.
Last Sunday, I spent some time in the boys' room, watchng TV - i was sat on the floor, on the carpet, but had to sit on the bed after a while, my bum was practically dead
Are you working in a hospital, or are you independent?

I am a Community Midwife, providing ante and post natal care to entitled families over here. It is a bit of a peculiarity my job, as we do not work within the German system as such, but our ladies get their secondary care from a German provider(hospital) but we provide all the other care the families require.
That may sound a bit odd - you don,t have to be mad to work with us but it certainly helps!
What do you do?

I work as a shop assistant in a health-food shop.
Do I understand it right that you prepare the mothers for birth, then care for them again once they're back from hospital? I had a midwife who came to my house for ten days after my children were born (I have two sons aged 18 and 15. I left hospital the same day the kids were born). I'd always recommend this when mother ansd baby are fit after the birth - why stay in hospital? It's sooo much nicer at home.

Yes that is about it, but we are involved with the mothers right through pregnancy doing the vast majority of the ante natal care, until roughly 28 days post delivery.
Very occasionally I go on longer than that with support around breastfeeding - sometimes I have even been called to families with breasfeeding children into their 3rd year.( I am a lactation consultant as well)

'd never have managed the breast feeding without my midwife, my baby being too stupid to drink - no really, it wasn't me who was stupid ( funnily, the second boy never had those problems).
Ante natal care - what is that? I did a class about six to four weeks before birth, that was all what was offered.

Ante natal care is all the blood pressure, urine checking, heartbeat listening, baby size and position stuff - If you were over here in Germany I presume you would have gone to your frauenartz for all of that - we do not use them in our system. The ladies go to the hospital for about 5 checks in their pregnancy and we do all the rest. We are probably a lot cheaper than the doctors!!

Good night for now, I am knackered, so going to bed to read a book.
Speak to you tommorrow - if you are still here.

I am in Germany, which is why I had no idea what ante natal care midwives provided (except for the course I mentioned). You're right, we have to go to the gynaecologis here, and I bet any midwife would not only be cheaper, but better than a doctor, but we can't choose that here. But my doc was ok, he was an old one, he had no ultra sound or anything, did all the checks the old-fashioned way.
Hope to talk tomorrow, sleep well

Sorry I did not get back yesterday, did not have time to get to the computer - plus my husband was hogging it!
I agree I am sure that midwives provide a better service - but I am biased I am sure.
What fantastic weather today -

And today, I have to leave, my sister and family will be here in a few minutes.
Have a nice weekend

Hope you have a great time with your guests - have a lovely weekend