C-section date

Here is my medical news:

• I am now booked in to have a c-section on Monday 4th March, though that date could change
• The bean is no longer transverse, or breech, but head down in the right position
• I'm having a growth scan on Monday to see quite how whopping he is
• I'm not allowed to have ECT before the birth unless I tell them I'm suicidal, so I'll be having it 1-2 weeks afterwards
• I've muffed up squeezing a spot on my chin, Logie is fascinated by it and keeps pointing it out

Jon and I met my consultant obstetrician today, and she was lovely. She'd read all my notes before I entered the room, was incredibly sympathetic, explained things in detail and gave us choices.

So I hope she didn't think that my sobbing all the way through was anything to do with her. In fact, I hugely appreciated the 50 minutes she spent with us, and I trust her. I wish I'd met her earlier on in my pregnancy, when depression first loomed, as it turns out that I probably could have had ECT  then after all, with the right people pushing for it.

I've been thinking a lot today about the difference between doctors, and how I rate them. Because the impact that seeing a top-hole doctor - or other sort of medical professional - has on one's outlook is very significant, especially when mental health is involved.

Perhaps it shouldn't matter if you like them or not, so long as they make the right clinical decisions. But it depends on the circumstances. I couldn't give two hoots if a surgeon operating on my back was a racist, misogynist arsehole if he was going to do a better job than anyone else (and I would be mostly asleep in his presence).

But in most cases, doctors and patients agree that better outcomes are secured when the patient feels reassured. This is especially important in mental health.

I've been trying to define what, in my personal view, makes a 'good' doctor. It starts off with them being intelligent. Now obviously, a doctor must be pretty clever to have qualified and been allowed to practise. I'm afraid this doesn't apply to a few nurses and midwives I've met recently - though I've met some brilliant ones too.

I'm quite bright, Oxford scholarship (much good it's done me in terms of glittering career or thinking my way out of brain meltdowns, so forgive the brag) and I don't have much patience with people who can't keep up.

But on top of this they need emotional intelligence. To understand what you're saying, maybe even put themselves in your shoes, and most importantly - TO ANSWER THE ACTUAL QUESTION THAT YOU'VE ASKED. There is nothing more annoying, or instantly disheartening, than someone dodging a question or remark. It demonstrates that either they didn't understand, they don't care or they don't think you're capable of hearing the truth. It's insulting and it kills your confidence in them like a shotgun to the head.

So if you ask me why I'm crying upon learning that I have to wait two weeks for a decision about whether a procedure will be allowed, let alone any action, and I say "I'm sorry, it's just that two weeks feels like an awfully long time at the moment when I feel this bad, but I guess there's nothing else you can do", don't say (with a hint of a shrug) "Well, if you get any worse you can call our out-of-hours crisis line or go to A&E". Do say "I know, it's frustrating, but I promise I'll ring you the minute the decision is made" or "Why don't I see if we can ask someone else to get an answer a bit sooner" or "You're right, I wish it could be sooner but there's nothing else we can do - that's hard to hear, but I promise we'll get things moving after that".

If you insist on visiting me in my home, ostensibly to offer support and talk about 'coping strategies', but really to check whether I'm dressed and have no obvious signs of self-harm, don't just repeat back to me the things I've just told you. If I update you on all recent developments with various doctors and midwives, inform you of when my next appointments are and say that the only good thing is that I'm sleeping much better at night thanks to the pills, don't tell me in response to anything else I later say that "Your appointment is at X time with Y and you can discuss Z" because I just told you that. Don't say "Getting more sleep will help you feel better" because you are totally stuck for anything else to say. It's bad enough repeating yourself, or things that I've just said, but I will brain you if they are totally self-evident things that a nine-year-old wouldn't need explaining.

If you notice from my maternity notes that I have a history of depression, but that I am not currently having any problems on that front, I am normal and sane but exhausted after 24 hours of contractions on a syntocin drip which makes them all the more violent and painful, don't tell me patronisingly that you will generously let me have an epidural just 'because you can see from the notes that I am an anxious person'.

If you want to reassure me about 'measuring big' don't tell me I am 28cm when I'm 32 weeks, because when I go to the obstetrician five days later and she measures me with a tape measure rather than with her fingers and karmic intuition and finds me to be 36cm, I will know that you were trying to make some sort of point, or were just grossly inept.

Oops, didn't meant to get ranty. What I meant to do was to share with you my honest inspection of my own ideas and attitudes about what sort of person makes a good health professional, for me. We've already established I am an intellectual snob. I worry/wonder whether I am racist and sexist too, I'm ashamed to say. Plus classist, and unreasonably pro-private vs NHS.

I do find it frustrating when English is obviously not someone's first language, and they can't spell or seem to understand long words. Maybe it's my posh voice. I do feel uncomfortable when there is a blatant wide gap between the sort of backgrounds that we have - I feel embarrassed and as if they can't possibly get me; they probably think I don't know how lucky I am.

I occasionally feel uncomfortable with a man, especially if I am really boo-hooing at top volume, or having to talk about vaginal discharge, or if he has just followed the midwife into my home with no attempt to check that I'm okay with him being there and rubbing his hands on my lower belly.

But two of my best (okay, favourite) psychiatrists have been men, one of whom was Pakistani, treated me for ten years, and for whom I have immense respect. We developed a relationship where we had a sort of shorthand. When I saw him when I was well we laughed and talked about cricket. I've interviewed him as a journalist. It cost a lot of money to see and be treated by him. Sure, I felt frustrated with some of his advice sometimes and dreaded going to see him when I was ill, but I always trusted him.

The other man was just very clever, very experienced, looked me in the eye, told me in tremendous detail what he thought, and prescribed decent amounts of valium when I was anxious and speedy ECT when I was depressed. He was NHS.

The one-to-one midwife I had when pregnant with Logie was so nice, and sensible, and like me (white, middle class, bright, sense of humour, often had a ladder in her tights) that I wanted her to be my best friend.

The three doctors I have seen recently who have 'got me' the most have all been female, at consultant level (anaesthetist, perinatal psychiatrist and obstetrician), one white, two Asian, all had that emotional intelligence X factor. All have written letters, made follow-up phonecalls and gone the extra mile to see if they could really and truly do anything else to help. And all on the NHS, I should add.

So make of that what you will. I often think about how I would behave if I was a doctor, and maybe that's what I look for - someone like me. And maybe that's short sighted. But I think it's only human to want someone nice, knowledgeable and who you can imagine being a normal person outside of work. A bit like when you were at school, and despaired or mocked at the teachers who were clearly subhuman freaks, but warmed to and wanted to impress the ones you could imagine down the pub, or bantering with their own children round the kitchen table.

I've gone on for far too long. So here is a lovely picture of my own child, at our own kitchen table, celebrating his second birthday and being totally thrilled at the candles on his Ben & Holly fairy cakes which I scraped together. He is the light of my life, and in less than five weeks I will have another.