Southerly: A Year Ago Today
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Great writing, David, I can see why it took you a year to get to this point!
Our hospital and midwife experience (3 weeks ago this morning) in Waitakere was very different ... a high degree of competence and professionalism, and no separation thanks to the lifts, or rule-mad receptionists.
But then there was absolutely no chance of Lil' Red emerging in such a swift and dramatic fashion.
Maybe try Waitakere Hospital next time? I can almost guarantee there won't be any snow...
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Sweet Jesus fuck, David. I do wish this was the first time I'd had to restrain a frothing incoherent rant about maternity nurses.
What I recommend is starting your precipitate labour outside the hospital. From there no opportunity arises to be separated from your partner.
Happy birthday snuzzles for Bob from me.
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Happy Birthday, Baby Bob. Big ups to your brave and clever mummy, and your clever and funny daddy for producing such a beautiful little boy. May you grow up to be as clever and brave, and may your love of country music diminish as time passes.
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Astute readers might note that Bob-the-baby was actually born a little over a year ago today.
That's because this piece was written a few weeks back, but then shelved because it didn't seem to be quite right. I had intended to run another piece last Friday (about taking my niece on an outing), but a certain Damian Christie somehow scooped me on that subject (how did he do it, I wonder?).
As a result, my earlier piece was dusted off, and hammered into more presentable shape.
[**Addendum**: This message was meant to be first on the discuss thread but dc_red, Emma Hart, Jackie Clark and their lightning fingers have beaten me to it. I am in awe of youse's typing prowess, dudes!]
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your workmates might nominate you to sing Der Hölle Rache
I sing it in the shower all the time, in my best falsetto. That's why we don't get mould on the ceiling - the spores are too scared to germinate. If the workmates want to risk it, well, they bring it on themselves.
it was utterly trivial compared with the experience of some families
Trivial? In the sense that Bob is fine, well sure. But it was a serious thing. Sure, you got off. But you cannot assess the rationality of your concern from the outcome, only from the prognosis beforehand.
Which reminds me.
Years ago my mate Blondie flatted with a bunch of young doctors. They had staggered stethoscopes hanging in the hall the way you might have flying ducks. One of the the young doctors was called Nick, and if we were drinking in the kitchen, we would chorus "Hi Doctor Nick!" a la the Simpsons.
One night we were sitting there and Dr Nick came in, headed straight for the beer, and did not respond to the customary greeting.
Dr Nick had been looking after a premature baby born so young its lungs were not making any surfactant; in other words, it couldn't breathe without help. And after a long, long time, with the best treatment and all the will in the world, it was obvious it would never breathe without help. The kid was in pain, too weak to live, and too strong to die. So, in the way that doctors and families sort these things out, that baby might have got a bit more morphine than appropriate. And a bit more than that. (I'm not saying anything, that's just an impression I might have picked up). And eventually, a lot more than a bit. And it died in its father's arms, hanging on to the last. So Dr Nick drank. I have no idea what the family did.
A year or two after that, my sister was mortally ill in a hospital in Jerusalem (she lived by the way), and we kept watch in the corridor outside the ICU. The families came and went, as one by one the patients died, but if they lasted more than a day or two, we would talk. A young fellow and I swapped pastries for breakfast one morning, and I learned that his son had been born with no liver. When the baby built up enough waste in the blood, he would die. The father was very composed, because when you believe it's all God's will, that's a comfort, apparently.
Nobody needs to go through that, or a tenth of that, or a hundredth part. May the smeary cake blot it all out.
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Belt,
Mate...
I'll spare you our birthing stories, and end with
Happy birthday Bob!
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Eh, I am way too gloomy this evening.
Happy belated birthday!
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dc_red wrote:
Our hospital and midwife experience (3 weeks ago this morning) in Waitakere was very different ... a high degree of competence and professionalism, and no separation thanks to the lifts, or rule-mad receptionists.
... maybe try Waitakere Hospital next time? I can almost guarantee there won't be any snow...
I should perhaps mention that there was lots of competence and professionalism in hospital before Jennifer went into labour -- and lots and lots in the intensive care unit. It was just the in-between bits that were a bit hairy.
And many congrats on the new baby, dc_red! My mum would be pleased if we'd chosen Waitakere -- it's not too far from where she lives.
Emma Hart wrote:
Happy birthday snuzzles for Bob from me.
Bob has just now come toddling out of the bedroom having decided that sleep has no more to offer him tonight. I took the opportunity to pass on your birthday regards before he was swept back into bed by his mother.
Jackie Clark wrote:
May you grow up to be as clever and brave, and may your love of country music diminish as time passes.
Thank you, Jackie! Alas the country music thing has shown no signs of remission. In fact, quite the reverse. When he was feeling peevish today I played him the 'Down from the Mountain' DVD recommended by a PA reader. Worked a treat.
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I played him the 'Down from the Mountain' DVD recommended by a PA reader.
You sure you didn't get that from recommendation Kiwiblog?
Thanks for sharing this tale BTW.
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Sue,
Happy birthday Bob
and thanks David for sharing your families story
It's not trivial at all, mum's and babies are the most amazing things in the world, and it's just wrong that either should experience such treatment in our hospital system.
Well it's just wrong and it's not ok
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Ur- my post went- where??
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Alas the country music thing has shown no signs of remission. In fact, quite the reverse.
Right on, Baby Bob! Don't listen to the country music naysayers. Go your own merry banjo-plucking, fiddle-playing way.
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Here's to young Bob and brave mums and happy outcomes. (And not, it's not an excuse to drink at 9 in the morning.)
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happy birthday bob!!
what a difference a year makes.
may you always be the curious chap we saw making a dash for the ladies at katipo.
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Happy Birthday, Bob.
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Happy birthday Bob!
When I had my first baby I swore I wasn't in labour (It was 6 weeks early and I was working as a rural midiwfe myself at the time) After being rushed by ambulance the hour trip to hospital by my midwife and while being assessed by the doctors (prem, breech baby coming fast) I was still waving my diary around trying to get someone to take over my next day's appointments. I think they call that denial.
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David, I got so angry reading your post I had to walk away from the computer before finnished reading it
Quite frankly this sort of thing should not be able to happen
I do have to say that my experiences with the birthing process (three sons spread over 6 years) even though it was 30 years ago was much more positiveAnyway a belated happy birthday to Bob and give his mother a big hug, she is such a trooper
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I had to go back and check your email updates from a year ago -- man, you did a good job of staying outwardly busy and composed while the worst of prospects loomed.
Well done to all of you for coming through a challenging year -- you're quite a family.
So do I get to meet His Bobness next week?
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Having just come back to work after the birth of our first baby last week, that was a very timely read - and I can't help note how different an experience it was from ours.
I too had a wife who seemed to think it wasn't really happening, until we headed off to National Womens in a storm at 4am and 3.5 hours later we had a son!
But we had our wonderful wonderful midwife - Rhonda in Grey Lynn if anyone need one - already there and appropriately friendly, bossy, professional and caring throughout. In Auckland we are lucky enough to have Birthcare to be shipped off to, and in our case I was able to haul a cot bed in the room and stay the night, so I never left Mum or bubs for more than an hour. The intensive care bit you experienced must be terrifying; we were scared enough when he slept a bit longer than we expected!So well done for getting through all that, and happy birthday to your wee man...
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Thanks everyone for all the nice birthday wishes for Bobster.
I should clarify that it's not exactly that I was in denial - believe me, it FELT like I was in labour. It's just that the hospital midwives kept telling me that the attempted induction had failed, and that I was just having a few 'prostin niggles' (prostin being the induction drug).
I should also clarify that I am not a total geek. But I had been without email access for the previous two weeks, and just that day, thanks to the generosity of Paul Brislen, I had finally gained access to the many hundreds of emails that were stacking up in my account. So I was just working through them with my finger on the delete key between (what we now know were) contractions.
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Thanks for the congratulations, David, and my own best wishes to Gareth.
Out West we have the option of the Helensville Birth Centre, which offers a service akin to Birthcare (albeit on a smaller scale), and means that Dad is never separated from "Mum and bubs".
(I did take a half hour walk around the mean/sunny streets of Helensville, during which I thought up Lil' Red's name.)
Anyway, I highly recommend the Helensville Birth Centre, and a happy belated birthday to Bob. Hearing of your antics over the last year has been amazing, Bob, yet strangely did not put me off having a little guy of my own! ;-)
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Jen - sorry I didn't mean to imply YOU were in denial (that was ME with baby #1 - and #2 truth be told). I am sorry you guys had such an experience. I hate hearing stories like that - makes me frustrated.
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Someone needs to tie this man to a chair and rip a book out of him.
The rules in hospitals that still prevent fathers from staying with their partners and newborns on that first night piss me off immensely. When my last kid was born it was by C-section so the mother was incapable of getting the baby out of bed when she woke. I'd be happy to sign any piece of paper over liability, demand nothing, and make the nurse's night easier by getting the baby and changing nappies etc, and sleep on a mattress on the floor in the corner.
But no. Booted out at 11pm, come back at 8am. Insane.
(Though I realise not all hospitals still operate like it's the 1970s in this way)
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Good. God.
It wouldn't just be the baby screaming if ti were me... I really glad you found yourself able to write about that day David. Too many of such stories shelved and everyone assumes they were the only ones it happened to.
I hope Big Boy Bob had a Onederful Day.
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The rules in hospitals that still prevent fathers from staying with their partners and newborns on that first night piss me off immensely.
Gosh. When my daughter was born after a long induced labour at about 3AM, 13 years ago at Waikato Hospital, someone got me a pallet and I crashed on the floor in the same room with her and her mother. Very humane, if not exactly comfortable. I am very surprised.
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