Daddy Lessons, Part I

This evening I decided to test my hubby's know how on what our lives will be like when baby arrives. I was fairly certain that I had debriefed him thoroughly on the first few weeks with our little crying/pooping machine. 

Man, was I wrong.

Our conversation went a little somethin' like this:

Me: (reading from a magazine) "When baby is born she will spend about 16 hours per day sleeping, split roughly 50/50 between day and night, punctuated with feeds about every two hours."

Him: What? (in a very cute Dorset accent, I must admit)

Me: Well what did you think would happen? We would feed and hang out with baby during the day and sleep at night?

Him: No, I thought she would cry at night but we would just give her a little cuddle and she would go back to sleep.

Me: (burst out laughing)

Him: Whot? (Dorset accent)

Me: (still laughing and unable to speak)

Him: You have to feed the baby every two hours? Even at night?

Me: YES. And it's very exhausting. We have to wake up constantly at night to feed/change/attend to baby.

Him: But...

After this enlightening conversation I shoved an article in his face titled, "I'm desperate for a good night's sleep" and told him to read it silently to himself.

The End

Hospital Horror

Yesterday my husband and I went to the hospital where I thought I was going to give birth to our child for our little pre-delivery maternity visit.

Not so sure that's the place for me.

The tour was supposed to start at 2pm. Of course Bunny and I arrived at 1:45. 

At 2pm the health care assistant who was running the tour rounded us all up in the foyer of the maternity ward. As she was about to begin she somehow realized one of the partners of a pregnant lady on the tour was still parking their car. Stupidly (and in my opinion selfishly), she made us all stand there and wait for TEN minutes until this meathead showed up. Not sure why she had to make 8 heavily pregnant women stand around uncomfortably and wait rather than begin the tour and have him join us when he was ready. 

When Mr. Meathead finally showed up Mrs. Health Care Assistant started a looooong spiel which could have been started ten minutes earlier, consequently leaving us to uncomfortably stand ANOTHER ten minutes. At this point my back was aching, i was sweating and wanted to go home.

Health Care Assistant FINALLY stopped yapping and brought us to the first part of the tour; a wing off the foyer where women in labor were sent if they were not far enough along to stay in the hospital yet too far along to go back home. 

Each room here consisted of four beds with TV's in them, separated by curtains. Of course you had to pay to watch TV.

She than brought us to a little room and informed us that in the past, you were allowed to frequent this room and prepare yourselves coffee, tea and toast. Unfortunately, Health and Safety (guidelines created by the government on, you guessed it, health and safety) have declared pregnant women and women in labor incapable of preparing their own tea and toast, claiming they will burn themselves or heavens forbid even worse. 

Why she brought us to that empty, unused room to tell us this is beyond me. Probably just to torture us.

From there we went upstairs to the delivery ward. Before entering each ward we had to sanitize our hands with the hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall. That got old and redundant very quickly for me. I'm not sure I understood the point of continuously sanitizing your hands? Wasn't once enough?

First room we were shown was a standard, delivery room where we would most likely be delivering our little ones. I'm pretty sure I had a walk in-closet in my condominium in Illinois that was bigger. Talk about small. How in the world was a woman in labor, along with all of her crap, a mid-wife, a birthing partner, a health care assistant, AND an anesthesiologist (since i'm having an epidural there damn well better be one there)  able to fit in that closet is a mystery to me. And I don't know that I want to find out.

There is a bathroom for the delivery closet but you have to share it with the room next door. We were advised to please make sure we unlock the bathroom door that goes to the other room so as not to lock out the person in labor we share the bathroom with. How convenient.

There is a bigger delivery room, health care lady announced. But don't get your hopes up b/c there is no guarantee you will get it.

The "bigger" room was smaller than the room I delivered Emily in in the United States.

"From here", health care horror lady explained, "you will be able to go straight home within two to six hours after delivering your baby".

That's right. TWO TO SIX HOURS after giving birth they want your ass out of the hospital.

After snickering out loud I raised my hand and asked, "Call me crazy but what if I'm not ready to go home two to six hours after giving birth?"

"Well, you really will be more comfortable at home" she told me, "you'll see what I mean in a moment".

I think it was her attitude that really pissed me off, and the condescending way she spoke to me.  If she had said, "well if you are not comfortable leaving we won't force you to go", or, "we would be more than happy to give you some more time" I would have felt more reassured.

Who is she to tell me or anyone else that I will be more comfortable at home? Anything a little more positive to help a crazy, hormonal pregnant woman would have been appreciated.

Dumbfounded, i followed the crowd to the next part of the tour.

Health care assistant from hell leads us to the next ward which is called, "Wheal Fortune Ward". I dubbed it the "Wheel of Fortune". 

Here, there were about 3-4 single, private rooms smaller than the closets we had just seen in the delivery ward and 2 or 3 more bigger rooms with four beds separated by curtains. 

Every single private room was empty and the shared rooms were only 50% occupied. 

Health Care lady from hell informs us that in the Wheel of Fortune ward there are always 3-4 midwives on duty and two health care workers. There is also a maximum capacity of 24 patients. Therefore, it's very difficult for them to take care of so many patients. 

After doing the math (and I'm no mathematician) 24 patients divided by 6 people equals four patients each. This brought me to my next conclusion: health care lady doesn't want to be bothered with SO many patients therefore encouraging, or bullying (depending on how you see things) women to go home TWO to SIX HOURS after giving birth.

Call me cynical or negative, but that's how I interpreted things.  

After finishing with the Wheel I asked lady from Hell, (at this point I realize I'm the ONLY person asking questions. The rest appeared like a bunch of zombies, not interested in anything at all) 

"Can our partners spend the night with us if we have a private room?"

"No" she replied, "It's not fair to the rest of the women on the ward". 

As I  stared at her giving her the evil eye wondering in my head, "what are you talking about he would be in MY room?" she continued on, "We can't have him wandering the halls at night when other women may have short pyjamas on. It would make them feel uncomfortable. It's not fair to them."

Oh sorry. I forgot my husband was a PERVERT who would only be with me to wander aimlessly throughout Wheel of Fortune  like a peeping tom to catch a glimpse of some random woman's legs in her short nighty. My bad.

The tour ended after Wheel of Fortune with Health Care Lady telling us all of the ice machines have been removed from the Wheel of Fortune ward b/c Health and Safety said it was too dangerous for women in labor to suck on ice b/c they may choke.

Yippee. More good news.

Oh and I almost forgot; if you pull up to maternity and leave your car parked outside rather than parking it 7000 miles away in the pay and park area, you will most certainly get a ticket and your tire may even be clamped.

I was so distraught afterwards I couldn't even take the 30 minute nap I was planning in the car ride home.

I'm currently investigating home births.

Old Habits Die Hard

I have this habit of arriving at doctor's appointments early. I always perceived this to be a good habit. First come, first serve, right? 

WRONG. 

Not here in the land of socialized medicine.  I learned this the hard way, of course.

Lesson #1: do not arrive more than five minutes early for doctors appointment otherwise you end up waiting a VERY long time. 

A couple of weeks ago Emily was sick with a nasty virus that has strategically hit each of us in our family, starting with her. Emily's doctor appointment was at 3:00. We arrived at 2:40, checked in with the receptionist, and begun what we didn't know would be a fifty minute wait. 

In the United States (and even in Oman) when you arrive and check in to a doctors office, they whip out your little chart, put in a basket thereby securing your place in the long lineup of patients.

Not so here.

Why did we wait fifty minutes? 

The appointment before us arrived fifteen minutes after we did (2:55) but of course was seen by the doctor (yes the very same one that was seeing Emily) before her b/c, and I quote from the receptionist, "Well their appointment was before your daughters, wasn't it?"  

SO. We arrived before they did therefore Emily's little green or purple chart should've been in the line-up before that bee-ach!

Couple that cockamany system with the doc running 15-20 minutes late and we have fifty minutes of waiting. 

I was LIVID.

This does not sound like an organized and efficient way to run a medical office. What if the person before Emily was twenty minutes late? Were we just going to sit and wait for them to turn up?

Lesson #2: Even ten minutes is too early

Fast forward three weeks. Now I'm miserably sick and going for my second appointment in two weeks hoping for some relief. 

Arrival time, 11:25. Appointment, 11:40 (I can't help it I'm a glutton for punishment). 

I watched the tick-tock of the clock and surveyed all of the areas of the waiting room that needed a paint job (which turned out to be ALL areas of the waiting room). 

11:30 Chic in black tights with oversized sweater arrives and sits down across the room.

11:35 Chic in black tights with oversized sweater called in to see same doctor I have an appointment with.

11:40 comes and goes. 

11:45 nothin'.

11:46 I begin to wonder how I'm going to get the previous fifty minutes plus these twenty minutes of my life back.

11:50 "Theresa Warren" is called over the loud speaker to see Dr so and so (more on the loud speaker another time).

Twenty five minutes still sucks but it's a HUGE improvement over fifty. 

From now on I will NOT be arriving more than five minutes before any doctors appointment. (ok maybe six but I'll try really hard for five even if I have to sit out in the parking lot and wait in my car!)

Sick and Tired

Being pregnant can be challenging. To say the least. Sleepless nights, weird food cravings (or aversions), mood swings, extreme exhaustion (and that's on a good day). But being pregnant AND sick totally and completely SUCKS. 

It's been three weeks and two days and there is no sign of getting rid of this nightmare of a virus. I've been doing everything I'm supposed to: eating chicken soup, drinking hot drinks, and getting plenty of rest.

I've even been taking 4-5 gazillion milligrams of vitamin C per day. How much can one body endure? And one little baby? I can only imagine she is sick and tired of eating chicken soup and will probably have an aversion to it for the rest of her life. Emily says she can "hear" the baby when she listens. I'm going to have Emily ask her what she thinks of all of this chicken soup.

Honestly, how much chicken soup, tea and honey and lemon drinks can one person endure? (Coincidentally I HATE honey and lemon, a gruesome combination.) How many days do I have to sit around from my couch and watch the rest of the world while the sun FINALLY shines? 

Nap or Nourishment?

This morning I woke up at 7am. Normally, Monday - Friday, this wouldn't bother me as I have to get up with my daughter and husband anyway. However, on a Sunday, when I can sleep in, (more so because the little one is at a sleep over) it annoys the crap out of me that I wake up so early and can't fall back to sleep.

As I lay in bed, trying desperately to fall back to sleep, visions of bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches (one for me one for baby) danced in my head. 

That's when I was faced with one of the hardest decisions a pregnant woman has to face: sleep or eat?

Normally, if I weren't preggers, I wouldn't sacrifice sleep for food. The food will always be there. And the sleep feels sooo nice.

Now that I'm 6.5 months pregnant, the sleep would be nice if I could actually get comfortable and my ribs didn't hurt every time I lay on my left side and my arm, shoulder and hip wouldn't fall asleep every time I lay on my right side. Not to mention the HUGE effort it is to roll from side to side. 

After assessing the situation I decided food was more important. Baby was probably hungry after not eating for...9 hours anyway. Now all I need is some bacon, eggs and cheese and I'm all set!