(This is a story from the day after Blake's birth. I sent it to my pre-natal group yesterday.)

We were only on the maternity floor for about 18 hours and it was a carnival of horror. Our first nurse was really great: sweet, kind, efficient & tolerant of our hippie demand to leave the baby unbathed. Things went rapidly downhill from there. The woman in the next bed ended up surrendering her baby to the nurses overnight because he kept puking up his formula. (From what she was saying on the phone, the nurses had fed him & neglected to tell her, so she pumped another ounce into him and then watched him vomit almost immediately. Poor little guy.)

But the piece du resistance was the end...

Our discharge nurse was dumb as shit. First she misread the public health form: she told me that I was getting a home visit, and when I told her that I had filled out the form to avoid a home visit (we're out of the cachement area of Toronto Public Health now), she told me that I had checked off the box for a home visit. I looked where she was pointing, and saw that it was a consent to release information to Public Health (which we are more or less obligated to check off). I pointed this out, reading the line word by word off the sheet. Then she told me that it didn't mean what I thought it meant. Yeah huh.

She weighed Blake, stripping him naked and dumping him onto the scale. By the time we had dressed him again, SHE HAD FORGOTTEN THE WEIGHT. So we had to strip him AGAIN. He was incredibly patient with this bullshit, but I could feel my fuse shortening.

Finally, she asked me who the baby's doctor was. Confused by the terminology, I told her the name of the physician we're seeing in 6 weeks. She shook her ugly head vigorously & told me that we needed an appointment in 2 days. I told her that the midwife would be doing that visit. Then she told me that it wouldn't be appropriate for a midwife to check the baby.

"Don't get me wrong, they're great," she said, twisting up her stupid little face at the same time to tell me that she thought no such thing. "But when things go south, midwives run to the doctor. You need to see a DOCTOR in two days." My mother the hospital nurse was standing next to me at this point, and god bless her, she believed that godforsaken idiot nurse. (In my mother's defense, she only wanted to do things properly. She's a tad over-anxious about her first grandchild). My mother began pressuring me to make an appointment. I told her I would do it later that day. Needless to say, I didn't.

So my mother made an appointment for me to see the family doctor without my consent, something that ended up causing huge embarrassment with the midwives today. (Part 2 of the story.)

Of all the idiots in a hospital, I had to get this one at this crucial moment. I was LIVID. I'm thinking of complaining to the hospital.

On my dad's lap...

Asleep in his first restaurant. Our little 5 star angel.

Daddy & babbie: the awwwww shot.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 12/16/2003 09:07:00 p.m.