Listening in

"Is it a train or a galloping horse then?" I asked, standing up from my chair at the other side of the room.
"Oh, I don't know, what do you think?", Ann-Marie, the fill in Midwife, tutted with a smile, as she moved the stethoscope like doppler machine around Ka's tummy bump. The weird, echoing like noises breathed out from the small machine the midwife held as she moved the doppler pad, interupted with the occasional crackle, like a radio station transmitting on a slightly off frequency.
I'm getting quite infuriated now with not knowing the gender of Baby Reid, although Ka is determined to keep it a surprise.
The whole speed of the heart beat is an old wives tale anyway. Surely you're not able to rush out and buy little blue sleep suits on the evidence of a heart beat sounding like a speeding locomotive. The wee Baby might just be having a wee swim around in there or something? Surely that would be enough to speed it up? Being nudged continually by a doppler must be pretty aggravating too. If you were floating about in a big bubble and had someone poking at you with a large rounded pad your heartbeat would surely increase, purely out of irritation?
These nurses never give anything away, no matter how you try and coax some information out of them. The coolest person in the hospital, the 'Ultrasound' woman was just the same. When we were getting the scans done, the ultrasound nurse was stubbornly remaining tight-lipped and non suggestive at my inquistive baiting.
Still, at least we heard the heart beat. Pumping away clear as day. It did actually sound like a train. A locomotive, steam pouring from it's chimney, the pistons and valves rotating over the steel wheels, only muffled, like you were listening from underwater, submergered in a swimming pool alongside the tracks.
Linda, from work, lent us a DIY Fetal Doppler a month or so ago which we tried. We followed the instructions, smothering Ka's belly in baby oil, putting on the earphones and rubbing the doppler over the bump. Most of the sounds we could hear resembled the gloops and squelches you'd usually hear from a swamp or from pushing an empty fruit juice carton into a basin fully of soapy water. We did manage to find a heart beat eventually but after a while realised it was Ka's so, in short, we didn't have much luck and were relying on the midwife visit on Thursday.
Thursday is midwife day in the local doctors surgery and it would seem all expectant mothers from all round the neighbourhood gather to see the baby doctor. Unfortunately it would seem Thursday is also the day that the receptionist with the loudest receptionist voice, ever, works. Admitting us with a:
"YOUR NAME?", and a "THAT'S FINE, JUST TAKE A SEAT". This receptionist smiles and her manner is pleasant enough but the volume of voice is a bit much for a visiting patient with reasonable hearing. After we sat down to wait, alongside the other pregnant couples, a few other 'normal' patients visited, some taking their seats in the waiting room, others picking up prescriptions. One lady patient phoned up about her prescription, us waiting patients surrounding the desk, hearing the whole 50% of the conversation. The receptionist's voice reverberated around the small room.
"MRS. WHITE.... YES. YES... HOW DO YOU SPELL THAT?". Ka and myself frowned at each other disapprovingly as we twiddled our thumbs. "NO, NOT THE WHITE, ESMAE? EZMEE? ESMAY".
For some reason I considered picking up one of the issues of 'Hello' sitting on the piled high on the magazine rack at the end of the long cushion seat that runs around the wall of the claustrophobic waiting room.
"I'M NEVER SURE HOW TO SPELL THAT!" the receptionist chortled, loudly from behind her desk.
"RIGHT, ESMAE, WHITE... RIGHT..." she nodded. "ADDRESS? ...23 SUCHANDSUCH AVENUE, RIGHT...". I sighed.
The receptionist went on nodding as she 'spoke' over the phone.
"YES, QUITE UNCOMFORTABLE, YES... SO YOU JUST WANT THE ITRACONAZOLE FOR YOUR THRUSH AGAIN THEN?".
My head spun round to look at Ka with incredulity, who replied with one of her "shut up" warning looks. She only just managed to disguise the slight smirk on her face, the same smirk which broke out over the face of the pregnant woman on the seat across from us.
Did we need to know that? Do medical surgeries not have some sort of privacy policies with regards to patient's information? I hope I don't get that receptionist the next time I'm on the phone giving any details. Poor Mrs. White... or Whyte, however she spells it.