Cultureshock

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Video transcript

I'm from down south originally but feel as though I'm a proper Geordie now, as I had my baby in Newcastle. My partner and I had only lived in Newcastle for a few weeks when we found out I was pregnant. It took about nine months to get over the shock, which is quite handy, but in the meantime we did lots of practical things, like finding some where suitable to live, and buying our first car in preparation for the big day.

My partner, Dave, he really wanted to get involved as much as possible, so he studied the A-Z of Newcastle and produced about 7 photocopied maps with different routes of how to get to the hospital in yellow highlighter pen. We drove every route several times at different times of the day to work out the quickest and most efficient route to Newcastle Royal Victoria Infirmary. We had money for the car park in a little sealed envelope entitled 'Geordie’s arrival day'.

Dave was really pleased I finally went into labour on a Sunday as the traffic would be calm; only because we'd not lived here long we'd never heard of this yearly event called 'The Hoppings Fayre' (the biggest fairground in Europe!). As we took our preferred route to the hospital we were caught in Hoppings Fayre induced traffic jam. We'd bought a CD of 'relaxing' music, even though I hate whale music and Tibetan bell noises and the like, but we'd read it would be good during childbirth so there we had it in the car.

So all I could see from the front of the car were children with candyfloss and balloons and huge dizzy fairground rides called things such as 'Boneshaker' and 'Joyrider'...It was horrific and I wasn't amused in any way.

Then, when we arrived at the hospital, the bay nearest the door where we'd planned to park, it was taken, as had most of the spaces in the multi-storey because people had been parking there to go to the Hoppings on the town moor. In the end we found a space next to a pillar but I was furious with Dave as I'd put on five stone in weight because of the baby and we only had the tiniest Renault Clio and I had to squeeze past a concrete podium to get out! Anyway, after a mile long walk through the hospital to the maternity ward our huge great baby,  who we named Ernest, was born by water birth that night. He was so big he filled out the newborn sleepsuit we bought him especially for his journey home. Dave was very proud of the car seat and putting Ernest in the car seat for the first time was his favourite moment, except that, there was lots of debris on the road due to the Hoppings, and we got a puncture of the way home!

We are very, very proud that Ernest was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and has Newcastle Upon Tyne on his birth certificate and this is a picture of us on the day he was registered taken outside our proper Geordie Tyneside flat with our Geordie baby.