Piece of Cake

When Sean was born we were seeing the World’s Most Obnoxious Pediatrician, not by choice, but because she had been thrust upon us as the newest doc in a very busy city practice.  WMOP–as I’ll now call her–insisted that having my third baby would be a piece of cake, as it had been for her.  Just a small addition to an already busy family.

I remember smiling and nodding just to be polite, but not feeling at all like it was a piece of anything sweet and covered with sugar and lard.  Tommy was still 3 at the time and had just begun riding the bus to and from his preschool special education class, and Ryan was only 19 months old, just a baby himself.  

This time around, it has been more or less the way WMOP described how it was after she had her 3rd.  Tommy is in school full-time, Ryan is 4 and almost completely potty-trained (a story for another day), and Sean is rapidly approaching his 3rd birthday at the end of February.  Leah just falls so nicely into place as number 4, it barely feels like any more work.  It just feels right.

There are, of course, other reasons for it being easier this time around.   My husband is working fewer hours and has a more flexible schedule.  He has been available for the kids’ doctor appointments, grocery shopping, and getting the boys into bed at night.  He is taking a large amount of the work load, even calling Tommy’s teachers about the boy’s school-work, and that’s an enormous part of what’s making this work. 

I’m not saying it’s all easy.  I’ve had a low-grade fever and a headache since Leah came home, and I was hit with a stomach bug the other night.  None of that stops the baby from having to be paced around the floors at night–the only thing that seems to sooth her gassy belly.    It’s just that I’m now accustomed to things not being easy, I don’t expect them to be, and that’s just fine.  Life with 4 small children is not easy, and probably isn’t going to get easier any time soon; but it is a life that’s pretty great.

The Good, the Bad, and the Baby

I had forgotten the intensity of caring for a newborn!  The last two weeks are a complete blur of sleepless nights, diapers, and breastfeeding, breastfeeding, breastfeeding. 

I’ve also come to realize that I’ve been running a low fever since I’ve come home from the hospital, and this terrible headache is probably not just from lack of sleep.  I think I’ve got a sinus infection, probably a leftover of the H1N1 virus.   Ryan is also sick, likely with strep throat, so today we’ll both be off to the doctors to get checked out.  Funny how it takes 2 weeks to notice that you’re sick when you have a new baby to care for.

Leah is already changing so fast.  She’s putting on weight and her head is getting bigger every day.  That’s a good growing brain in there.  She’s still so tiny, it makes me smile when I look at her feet in her little tiny pajamas.  She looks just like a baby doll, a little girl’s dream come true.  Newborn babies are smart little things, mine all learned in the first day that they were not going to sleep in their beds by themselves.  Even when I try to move her away from me on the bed during the night, she wiggles her way right back to sleeping up against my body.  It looks like sleeping soundly will have to wait yet another few years. 

 

More Reasons Not to Like Doctors and Hospitals

It all started with a call to my doctor’s office regarding the H1N1 virus that was making its way through my family.  This was on Oct. 20th, a Tuesday.  I called my Ob/Gyn to let them know that I had the infamous Swine Flu and wanted to know what the procedure would be if I were to go into labor while ill.

The first response of the receptionist was to ask me how I knew it was the Swine Flu.  Fair enough.  I told her that my son had by diagnosed by his doctor, and since we were all sick with the same symptoms, I could safely assume that it was what I had as well.  What was her professional response to that?  She said, “you don’t sound that sick.”  I laughed and thanked her for her opinion, but kindly asked if she wouldn’t mind having the physician, the dude with the medical degree, call me to answer my questions.

He returned my call a couple of hours later.  I told him I was on Tamiflu, told him that I was almost 38 weeks, which is when my last 2 children were born.  I asked him what I could expect as far as hospital procedure if I delivered while ill, if my husband could attend the birth if he was sick, if I could breastfeed the baby, and what the risks were to a newborn if she were born to a mother who was sick with the flu.

His answer to all of the above was, “I don’t know,” and “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Okay, fine, I thought.  He doesn’t think I’m going to deliver while I’m sick, but I’m sure he’ll let the hospital know that I might be coming in with the flu.  I’m sure he’ll look into the answers to these questions.  Laugh with me now, bwahahaha-snort.

Now, for the full perspective on what I call ineptitude and poor listening skills, let’s step back to my last several appointments with the Ob.  I have told them, both the NP and the Ob, several times over the past couple of months, and at least a couple of times in the beginning, that I deliver my babies, fast, fast, faster than fast.  Speed?  I am speed, to coin a phrase.

What was their professional response to this?  Complete and practiced nonchalance.  Even when I came up positive for GBS, a condition that requires at least 4 hours of IV antibiotics before delivery, they did not give up on their lack of concern.  It was as if the 7-8 times I had mentioned my fast deliveries never even happened!  It was like I completely wasted my breath even speaking the words.

Which brings us to the early hours of Oct. 25th, with a 2 AM wake up, a call to the doctor, and excruciating ride to the hospital, and a baby born before we could get in the doors of the hospital at 3:25.  That’s an hour and twenty-five minutes to you and me. 

We spent Sunday in a state of bliss and exhaustion, holding our new baby, thanking God that she was safe.  Late Sunday night we said goodbye to Ed for the night, and tried to settle in and relax.

Let me say here that I hate the hospital.  The only time I’ve really spent any time there was to have my babies and it has never really been a pleasant experience.  Even when conditions are at their best as far as the facilities and the staff, I am a bit of a wreck postpartum.  I feel exhausted, physically and emotionally to the point of some amount of confusion and a large amount of anxiety.  I do not like can barely tolerate being kept in an institution, the 24 hour assault on my privacy and my sleep are probably the worst things for how I feel postpartum.  I do it, however, for the well-being of my baby. 

So–back to saying goodbye to Ed for the night.  Because he knows how I feel when I’m at the hospital, he asked me a few times if I was okay, and I assured him that I was.   I told him I would call him if that changed.

A little while after he left, it changed.  My nurse came into the room, looking accusatory, and told me she had just gotten off the phone with my Nurse Practitioner.  “MJ said you were sick with the Swine Flu.” 

“Yes, I told my doctor’s office that almost a week ago.”

“Well, now we have to put you on isolation,” she said with irritation.

“Why?  I’m not sick anymore.”

From there, it all went downhill.  It seems to have come as a complete surprise to the nurses and doctors that they might get a patient with the flu, and have to answer some simple questions regarding their care.  No one wanted to come into the room, because to do so meant having to put on scrubs and a mask and goggles.  Leah was banned from the newborn nursery, for reasons that still remain very unclear to me, and we were left to fend for ourselves for the night. 

Another nurse came to the doorway to talk to me, but didn’t want to come in the room.  She STOOD in my DOORWAY, shouting to me about what they thought I might have to do.  The list included my husband no longer being able to come see us, my having to go back on Tamiflu which would prevent me from nursing my new baby for 5 days, and perhaps not having any visitors at all.

I informed them–AGAIN–that I hadn’t been sick in about 4 days, that I no longer had the freaking Swine Flu, that they were basically all a bunch of ass hats, that I would not take Tamiflu–because I WAS NO LONGER SICK–and I would not stop nursing my daughter. 

The next morning, I was starving waiting for someone to bring me my breakfast.  I rang my nurse twice before she finally came in at 9:30 and I asked her if I would be allowed my breakfast that morning.  She went and brought it in to me, and it was cold and soggy.  They didn’t want to be hassled to bring it to me when it was hot, because that would require putting on scrubs, etc.

A little while later the NP who had started this whole fiasco came in to see me in full hazmat gear.  By this time I was so angry and upset that I probably could have spit nails at her.  She and the nurse just stood there gazing at me from behind their masks, and I did my best to ignore them by looking at the TV.  At this point I had completely given up on their competence, which leaves them with nothing to say to me.

Then she made the supreme mistake of saying to me, “boy, you do labor fast!”  As if it were some kind of a cute joke!  Like we could laugh together about what happened!  As if GBS were nothing to be concerned about!  As if nothing terrible could have happened from my baby being born in a wheelchair, in the parking lot of the hospital!

All I could do at that point is grit my teeth and say, “I told you that.”  To which her response was to walk quickly out of the room, which was probably the smartest thing she had done thus far.

Ed came in an hour later, and was chased down by my nurse who told him he had to put the full gear on to sit in the room with us.  I wanted to know why, since we were apparently all equally infectious.  I stated that it would make more sense if Ed were required to wear the gear to and from my room, so that no one else in the hospital would be infected.  She responded with some drivel about policy, to which I stated that I was going home, immediately, with my daughter.

It didn’t take long after that for them to send in the nurse manager to talk us down from the precipice from which we were about to leap; the one from which you jump after you realize how very little the institution is doing for you, and just how much you’re paying them to do it.

We told her our story, for which she sincerely apologized.  She guilted me into staying another day, “for the baby,” because Leah had been exposed to GBS, because of my practitioners who did not listen to me. 

She was useful, I have to admit, because she looked into all of my questions.  Apparently I would not have to stop nursing to take Tamiflu, although I would not be taking it because I was NO LONGER SICK.  She also checked the CDC guidelines for when a person could be considered no longer contagious and found out–get ready–that Ed and I were no longer contagious!  Even from the time we came into the hospital!  So none of this was necessary.  Just like I had told them in the first place.  Isn’t it funny how no one bothered to find out this tiny bit of information until I had been run through the ringer?  Again we all had a laugh together.

So–I stayed the extra night, for my little Leah, because that’s what mommies do.  We got a letter of apology about the mix-up, a souvenir spoon from the hospital, and I decided to be civil toward my nurse.  But what I mostly got out of the experience is further validation of my negative feelings toward hospitals and the medical establishment, and some memories that make me feel pretty angry.  That is simply priceless, don’t you think?

A Few More Pictures…