Friday, 06 August 2010
So after spending my entire life without having a daughter or a nephew, I’ve suddenly gained both in a matter of days. Last night (though I didn’t find out about it until this morning) my wife’s sister gave birth to little Asa. After only ten days as the youngest member of her family, Isla has already one-upped by her new cousin. I’m not sure why, but my sister-in-law must have a strong drive to have the youngest grandchild in the family – her daughter Lyric had been the youngest grandchild for over four years, up until Isla was born last week. Now, she’s gone and taken that title again. Oh well. We’ll always have the oldest.
Also today: I’ve gotta comment on what a jolting contrast it is between our two interactions with the medical community.
This morning, the midwives came for their one-week visit. Then, this afternoon, we took Isla to her first ever doctor’s checkup. It was her first time in a car (which, hilariously, the midwife termed a “blandmark”). So, first we have to get in the car, then we have to find our way to this office, park in the ramp, then figure out how to get from the ramp to the office.
Next, we were greeted at the front desk by a, “We’ll be right with you guys.” Then we had to fill out some paperwork, and have a seat in the waiting room, where we they’d placed a sign that says “If you’ve been waiting for more than 15 minutes, please let one of the front desk associates know.” That’s a rather depressing sign, and I’ll explain why:
See, the very existence of such a sign proves that sometimes, some people DO have to wait that long. So…you might be among them. In fact, the existence of the sign indicates that there’s been a problem at that particular location, and this is their attempt to remedy it. But notice the sign doesn’t say they’ll do anything about it – it just says to let them know, as if they’re on some sort of twisted fact-finding mission. I’ve walked up to the desk a couple of times to inform them of the long wait, and they don’t do anything. They just say that they’ll remind the doctor (or whoever) that you’re waiting, and they ask you to go have a seat again.
Anyway, we didn’t have to wait fifteen minutes, but we did wait more than ten. Then we were shown to another room where we waited longer. Does the fifteen minutes “reset” at this time? I don’t know.
So then this nurse begins helping us. Despite the fact that Isla had just been measured and weighed at home, she felt the need to do it again. Which, is fine, but I thought it was funny she had to use this super-high-tech, digital computer thingy to weigh Isla, while the midwives just placed Isla in a sling and held it up as a spring registered the weight. The nurse got approximately the same weight, but she got a length measurement about two inches more than the midwives got. Despite her high-tech equipment, the nurse’s measurement was wrong, as Jennifer and I re-measured Isla at home and there’s just no way she’s more than 20 inches long, much less 21 inches (unless you pull one of her legs out of it’s socket. Do infants even have sockets yet?).
While on the super-high-tech weighing bed, Isla peed. The nurse said to Isla: “Oh, you naughty girl.” She said it in a playful manner, but I don’t like the implication. Isla didn’t do anything wrong – because peeing spontaneously, when 9 days old, and fully naked, seems like a perfectly natural, normal thing to do. There are so many other better things she could’ve said. Maybe I should’ve said something at that point, but all I could think to say was: “Fuck you, bitch.”
Then the nurse carried Isla back to the exam room. This, again, isn’t really a problem, but it’s funny that the midwives haven’t even held Isla yet. And when they’ve needed to handle her, they’ve said things like: “Is it okay if you put Isla in the sling here, so we can weigh her?” It’s just a different attitude. To me, the nurse is thinking: “I’ve gone to college for this sort of thing, so I know best how to carry an infant back into an exam room.”
And here’s the funny thing: she didn’t know how to carry a baby at all. She held Isla out, away from her body, as far as possible, as if Isla was some disease-carrying receptacle that needed to be disposed of. Isla is easily startled, so she was quite frightened to be held out, limbs flailing, being carried through a cold and unfamiliar place by someone who smells like iodine.
Anyway, the doctor was fine, but I wasn’t in a good mood after all that. The bottom line is, home visits from people who treat birth and infants with the respect and sacredness they deserve easily trump corporate drones who are instructed to treat the human body as a pathology.