Spitting Bullets

Or:
“How I nearly became an Eskimo but didn’t because I couldn’t face the discrimination.”

The long suffering Lady G and I were recently taken aback by a line of questioning undertaken by staff during our most recent visit to hospital. Lady G is again with child, a development that had apparently involved me (although, I can’t quite remember…)

Allow me to set the scene.

‘Booking In’

The first anti-natal appointment for any new pregnancy, known as ‘booking in’ (as if one had just arrived at the reception of a Travel Inn off any main road anywhere), always takes longer than subsequent appointments due to the number of important questions that need to be asked in the early stages of gestation. The midwives and consultants chase you from one room to another over a period of 3 hours, filling in endless paperwork and asking numerous questions of a rather personal nature such as “have you used any contraception in the last 12 months” (clearly not – Ed).

White bun in the oven

In one of these rooms, Lady G was asked “Do you consider yourself to be white?”. Lady G confirmed that she did. The student midwife then turned, looked straight at me, and asked the same question. Knowing that I was white didn’t prevent me from making sure. I found myself casually examining my hands, before confirming to my interviewer that I did indeed consider myself to be white.

Still unsure as to the exact reasoning behind this line of questioning and before I had time to consider exactly what the reaction might have been had I declared myself to be black, we were escorted to yet another waiting room for further interrogation.

Twenty minutes later, it transpired that simply considering oneself to be white was not going to be good enough.

“I see you consider yourselves to be white?” said the next midwife we saw.

“Er, yes that’s right” replied Lady G, who, inexplicably, thought now was as good a time as any to expand on her family history.
“Actually” she said, “I have a very interesting background.”

With that, the midwife stiffened, like an erection on heat.

“Go on” she said.
“Well, I have some Russian ancestry, and one of my paternal grandparents was Spanish.”
“Spanish!” echoed the midwife with surprise whilst salivating. “Let me see, it doesn’t say that here?”

The midwife cast an eye over Lady G and then checked the forms in front of her again.

“Right, well, you’re not white then, the first midwife’s ticked the wrong box” she said.

Firing Squad

Lady G looked at me. I looked at her. We both wondered if we might now be shot.

“The wrong box?” Lady G asked nervously.
“Yes” said the midwife, “You should be under Southern European!”

Southern European sounded infinitely more inviting than the sound of the hospital firing squad. However, it would appear that unless you are one-hundred per cent British (whatever that means), one is not classed as being white, not even perhaps if you were of Greek decent and your family had spent the majority of the last century residing at Buckingham Palace.

No place for an Eskimo

Sensing that it was my turn next, I decided to pre-empt the drooling midwife, and explained that it would be impossible to fully trace the paternal side of my family due to the identity of my natural paternal grandfather being completely unknown, and, that those who had the answers, had passed the point in life where they may have been able to let on.

“Therefore”, I said rather inadvisedly, “I could be, for sake of argument, a quarter Eskimo.”
“Mmm, now let me see” said the midwife who then proceeded to spend five minutes checking the forms in a vain attempt to find a box for Eskimo which didn’t exist.
“I don’t know where I’d put Eskimo” she said, “Perhaps under Iceland. No, Iceland’s not in Europe is it?”

Recognising this as a rhetorical question, neither Lady G nor myself gave an answer and seeing as we were now completely baffled and confused more than we were ever likely to be, we decided to leave cut our losses and let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak - wherever Iceland was to be found.

Five minutes later we left the hospital and I comforted Lady G who was recovering from the discovery of her new found ethnicity. Apparently this might mean that the risk of medical complications for the baby could increase, due to certain diseases being related to ethnicity - however, the chances of the NHS discovering this risk was of course entirely dependent on which box the midwife ticked - which was in turn utterly dependent on whether Lady G considered herself to be white - and finally, this was completely dependent on whether the midwife of the day understood the geographical location of the countries of the world. I concluded therefore that all midwives should have, at the very least, some sort of qualification in geography - perhaps something akin to The Knowledge for Black Cab drivers would work, but for whole continents.

As for me, I left the hospital absolutely elated that if it were discovered that I did in fact possess Eskimo ancestry, the NHS would have no box for me – especially if my grandfather had been an Eskimo from Iceland - you know, that country near London full of geisers.

Copyright © Spitting Bullets 2008