potpourri

Thanks for all who offered prayers and best wishes for the confirmation. It went very well, there were 63 candidates who were all well dressed, well-behaved, and just plain wonderful. It was lovely to see my dd lead the procession carrying the Paschal candle to the front - this also meant that by the quirk of seating she was the first one confirmed. Her sponsor had rehearsed the somewhat unusual confirmation name (Gottschalk) over and over again. Bishop McCormick had a twinkle in his eye as he pronounced her name and administered the sacrament. The whole mass took around 2 hours, and the confirmation itself was 23 minutes of that time. Music was provided by members of the last years class with help from the Parish music co-ordinator playing organ and piano on the traditional hymns. The kids played guitar on the contemporary 'praise and worship' style music, but it was all acoustic guitar and fit right in. There was also a trumpeter who played along with the organ on some of the hymns. I was also glad to hear my dh acknowledged for his two years of spending 2 sundays a month with his group of confirmands. He is planning to do it again for the next 2 year cycle.
I have been reading my comments and my email, but have really been overwhelmed with work and family committments so haven't been making the rounds of the blogs. I know that Scott will probably pop up here to encourage me (yet again) to get and use an RSS feed and I suppose that eventually I will. The one I had for a while was not very friendly to my style. It was kind of like the confusion I encountered in the early days of the internet when I tried to get into various usenet groups - I just couldn't figure out the syntax and the process! That learning disability of mine is also why I don't participate in the forums including the St Blog's Parish Hall. My brain just doesn't wrap around that kind of syntax.
Work has been pretty tough lately. I haven't crunched the numbers yet but I am guessing that my cesarean rate (among midwifery patients who went into labor) is going to be close to 50% for the last few weeks. The hardest labors both on mom and midwife are the ones where you try and try everything to get the baby out the normal way and it just doesn't work. Have had a couple in the last few weeks where the mom and baby would probably not have both survived labor in the absence of modern medical and surgical care - and I don't say that lightly. I just wish that there were a way to predict these cases before putting everyone through this, but there just plain isn't. Only in the most extreme cases can an educated decision be made that this just plain isn't going to work - and it is still an educated guess. I'm a good clinician - and I am usually either right on when estimating the weight of the baby before birth - or I am 2 pounds (1 kilo) off. US has an error ratio of 10% - and we can't know what is going to happen in the course of labor to the mom or baby.
I hear you down there in the comments box who want me to weight in on the vaccination debate. I'm not ready to put the effort into doing the long research to put forth the quality of article that I would write. I am also wondering if I should try to find a paying venue for that kind of content.
On another note, I was passed the baton on the 5 things that others like that I just don't get meme. Have been mulling it over and will try to make that post fairly soon. I spend usually 7 hours/week just commuting, and that gives me some good thinking time but by the time I get destinated I am not usually in a position to do much with the thoughts I have been having!