Be prepared not impaired

I've started thinking along practical lines in the last couple of days after having read the manual you're given by the hospital when you're expecting a baby.

It says that, in the lead up to the birth date, you should finish all odd jobs around the house, make sure all baby gear is ready and make sure you learn how to use those things that will be new to you as a parent: baby alarm, bottle sanitiser thing, push chair and other things.

Yes, I did say push chair. Have you ever looked at one of those things up close? Unless you're a parent, it has probably bypassed you that they're not just chairs on wheels any longer, they're fully fledged 'Travel Systems'. Our Travel System came from Mothercare and I believe goes by the attractive name of Trenton. It's a push chair cum pram cum carry cot cum baby car seat - we didn't bother getting the one with the built-in mp3 player slot. It's like a jigsaw. God knows if it's colour coded for the sighties but, well, it could be easier to use I'm sure. We familiarised ourselves with it again on Sunday. It took an hour working out how to secure everything in there safely.

The baby manual stresses keenly that you should make sure your car has enough petrol in it to get you to the hospital when those contractions get down to the magic 3 minute intervals. Um. Does everyone really rely on cars? Is that absolutely expected? What kind of blindist mindset wrote this pamphlet, huh?

Our plan was to call a taxi firm. I've been thinking about it the last few days and am wondering whether they all work 24 hours. I must FIND OUT WHICH ONES ARE ROUND_THE_CLOCK OPERATIONS PRETTY SOON I think. But if I call them up and ask them to send a taxi round quickly, do I admit it's because they need to pick up my girlfriend who is in the final stages of labour? Will they rush to us or rush to avoid us? Maybe there is an unwritten code amongst London taxi drivers that shuns women over 37 weeks pregnant in case their waters break and ruin the car's uphaulstry. I mean, you can't blame them. So do I or don't I admit it? If they are running late do I call them up again and scream "for god's sake get here quickly, my girlfriend is about to give birth". That's not gonna help is it.

One of our big problems is that we don't have any family nearby. Both sets of parents are around a 2 hour drive away north and south of London. Many of our friends have started moving out of London too in the last couple of years so it's all feeling a bit lonesome in the big city. Though we'd rather like to move out into the country to bring up a child away from the inner city, we feel rather stuck here because it's very hard for visually impaired peple to get jobs, and London is where the jobs are. It's more likely that blind people will get a job in a big metropolitan area.

GF has shunned all antenatal classes because her sister is a trainee midwife and her other sister a GP. So we have good medical backup and knowledge. But the big thing we're missing is people; others in the same situation as us that GF could have made friends with on class but hasn't. She also seems reluctant to talk to the NCT - National Childbirth Trust - and join their parent/mother groups. We really need to pull our finger out here and start up a bit of a support network and, of course, be able to give support in return. Um, if anyone wants it. Oh god lets not go there today.

Some of my main worries are about me surviving on the labour ward when looking after girlfriend there. I can't see and don't know my way round the place. I've not been there despite the fact they suggest you should. I'm usually the kind of blindie who'll stops himself from moving around too much in unfamiliar situations so that I don't cause too much fuss and don't break anything. I usually have a guide dog but have been without one for 8 months because they can't find me a new one since the last dog retired. So, I'm a white cane user at the moment, not a particularly competent one as I've not used one for 17 years really. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a total spastic with it, I'm OK, it's just that guide dogs bring you so much more independence. In short: if you use a cane you have to whack an object with it before you know it's there. With a dog, they gracefully swerve you round objects and more than that they occasionally pre-empt where you're trying to go because they may have been there before. They're a dream, really. So the labour ward is currently giving me anxieties because I need to be there to help. I am not the main event, GF is, I want to be the side show and be as self sufficient as possible - and hopefully without knocking other beds sideways, clanging my cane loudly against nurses trolleys or falling into the laps of other pregnant women.