All our teams are currently working extremely hard as we, along with the rest of the NHS, tackle Covid-19. That’s why we wanted to give our colleagues the spotlight, as part of our In Conversation With interviews, to share what they’re doing and the impact on them.

This week we spoke to Georgina Lennon, a midwife at our Trust who started a new role as a clinical skills facilitator/lecturer in April, right at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Age: 26

Lives: In Laindon with partner Jay, a police officer, and their kitten Barney.

And: Georgina never intended to be a midwife – she grew up planning a career in law before a pregnancy in the family piqued her interest in the profession. She also recently featured on Facebook Live show ‘Alive n Well’, run by MC Mark. You can watch it online.

Tell us about how you went from planning to be lawyer – to ending up a midwife?

I was quite academic and went to a grammar school sixth form where I was head girl. Careers like nursing and midwifery were not entertained there; it was all about law and medicine.

I’d always planned to be a lawyer and had a place at the University of Reading. I was just about to do my accommodation application when I had a meltdown while doing my Saturday job at Greggs.

My mum picked me up, we went to have lunch and I told her that I wanted to be a midwife. She was unsure at first, then realised how passionate I was about it.

My sister-in-law was pregnant at the time and we’re really close, so I’d been quite involved in her pregnancy. She had a lot of complications before my niece was born prematurely. That got me thinking about midwifery, and a friend of one of my colleagues at Greggs was training to be a midwife, so I must have heard about it from her too.

My niece, Hudson, was born in October 2012, and I started midwifery training in March 2013 at the University of Greenwich. I was so excited to start and it was like a whole other world - I’m the first in my family to go into healthcare.

I did my placement at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford and it was so surreal on the ward. I remember my first shift on the birth centre – spilling my coffee down my uniform beforehand, and being too nervous to go onto the ward until I saw someone I knew. I was also really lucky to get a birth on my first shift.

I’ve never doubted my decision – I loved midwifery since day one. I enjoy empowering women and seeing how amazing they are. Being at a birth is a phenomenal experience, so to do that as a job is really special.

What about your career so far?

I qualified in 2016 and before starting work, I volunteered in Peru for three weeks.

It was one of the elective placements the university encouraged us to do. I worked in a rural maternity hospital and it really highlighted the differences in healthcare in other countries. Women had to pay for everything and were all labouring in the same room.

While it made me appreciate what we have here, there was also a really lovely community vibe among them and they really looked after each other. It was an amazing experience – I also got to travel at the weekends, including visiting Machu Picchu.

Then I worked at Darent Valley Hospital for a year. I came to our Trust in 2017 when I moved in with Jay in Essex.

I started in the Birth Centre, which I loved, and became core midwife in six months which meant I was in charge of the shift. I’ve also rotated to the Antenatal ward and the Day Assessment Unit.

I did a Florence Nightingale leadership course in 2019, and finished my Master’s in advanced midwifery practice, this year. So when a new role came up as a clinical skills facilitator/lecturer in January, I saw it as an opportunity to develop myself as I’d always been interested in education.

My role is split into providing training to qualified midwives at the hospital, helping them to build their skills, and providing support on the wards. I spend the other half of my week lecturing student midwives at London South Bank University.

It’s been very surreal starting a new job in the peak of Covid as many aspects of it, such as education workshops, haven’t been running. Instead I’ve supported on the wards and done lots of PPE training.

It’s mostly been business as usual in Maternity – babies don’t stop for a pandemic! What has been very different for us has been PPE. I remember the first birth I did wearing it – the mum was sweating, I was sweating, and it was a water birth.

What has been nice to see is more of a community atmosphere on the ward as after the baby is born, partners aren’t able to stay. There are a lot more open curtains and chatting between mums on the Postnatal ward, which is lovely to see.

 As the university has been closed I’ve been working from home, teaching via MS Teams. Students have still got to do their exams as we need them to qualify to join us. So instead of showing us their practical skills, they’ve had to talk us through it.

What do you like to get up to in your spare time?

I’m known as ‘the crochet midwife’ – I’ve been doing it ever since I qualified. It started when I was going to a baby shower and decided to make a gift, I crocheted a blanket.

When my colleagues started to see what I did, they’ve asked for various things. I love it as it’s so relaxing. This week I finished a birthing mum, complete with c-section and vaginal openings. A colleague asked for it to use in ante-natal education.

I also love running. I’ve done the Brighton, London and Paris marathons. I did London when I was 18, as soon as I was old enough. I grew up in Eltham and when we were young we’d go to London every marathon day.

And our favourite question of In Conversation With…have you got any pets?

We recently got a cat, Barney, he’s six months old and has taken over our lives! We’d planned to get him before lockdown and picked him up in April, which was weird. We placed the carrier in the porch of the house we were getting him from, and they put him inside, as we couldn’t go in.

He’s a nice little companion for me as Jay does shifts and I now do Monday to Friday. I even get ‘mum-guilt’ if he does something new and I miss it! He went out for the first time on Sunday, which was nerve wracking, but he loved it!