That story of the toilet took me back a few years Rab but you'll have to use your imagination on this.
The early hours of one morning we had a call of someone in labour. We arrived at the house and the hubbie told me she was in the toilet. It was too late, the baby had delivered and I was faced with the mother sat on the toilet, nightdress rolled up around her waist, holding the baby. The only problem was the placenta hadn't presented itself yet and in those days we wasn't allowed to clamp or cut the cord.
I then decided to go and tell my colleague to bring up some blankets and a chair. As I was half way down the stairs I heard a plop and yes, the placenta had appeared and was now at the bottom of the toilet.
The problem was now how to get the placenta out of the toilet, which was still attached to the baby, who was being held by the mother.
It didn't seem very dignified if I stuck my head between her legs to reach and fish out the placenta from the toilet.
The only thing I could think of, bearing in mind this is 4am in the morning, was to get her to move onto the edge of the seat while I cocked my leg over behind her.
On goes the surgical gloves, waste of time because the bloody water came over the top, and I started fishing. I managed to get hold of the placenta but it acted like a dervish with no arms or legs. It wobbled uncontrollably until plop, it dived back in.
The second time I managed to control it's wobbling and managed to pass it through the mothers legs into a bowl my colleague was holding the other side.
My wife, while pregnant with our second, was visiting her mother. She wanted to go to the toilet. While there the head started to show so my MIL called the neighbour.
She laid her down on the floor of the living room and the neighbour told my wife not to worry because she was brought up on a small holding and had seen cows calving :O)
That is where my daughter was born, on the carpet at my MILs.
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