Very nice piece of writing David - you should be especially pleased with your conveying of the emotions involved without resorting to...I dunno... caps? Exclamations? Weapons fire?

As far as the Whole Birthing Thing goes, we had #2 and #3 at home, having had a home-birth in hospital [our people, their facilities] for #1. Stayed 4 hours, one of us peed [is that a weird criterion for permission to leave or what?], got in the car and went home. So not too much hospital-contact time. Enough, however, to have shared your gossiping midwife, I'll-see-you-when-I'm-good-and-ready experience.

BUT we did do the pre-birthing tour of Nat Women's [Akld, 1990] with "Sister". Well, to be completely honest, we did the first half. Being an ante-natal parent and dealing with Sister, on that day, was like being German and dealing with Basil Fawlty. We stayed as long as we could manage, but after a few scoldings [some people didn't have their birthing books on them!!] and hearing Sister describe the baths available as "one-man" facilities, we just couldn't take it anymore and bailed.

Well done, well written, lovely Bob.