Evelina Valentine West
7lb 9oz, 20"
DOB: 2.11.2 16:16 -05:00
This little girl rocks. Mom was in labor for only 7 hours and the hard labor was less than 2 hours. Drugs made that time more bearable for her.
The nurses and doctors kept getting on my case because I didn't want to cut the cord. One nurse said it was special, I replied by telling her that slashing a rope attached to my baby didn't seem that special. The doctor told me it was just like cutting a rubber hose to which I said "have fun." I still don't understand what the big deal was.
One cool thing is that the hospital put a little device on her since dead cord that would pretty much shut down the whole hospital if anyone tried to remove her from the recovery section of the hospital. Elevators stop, doors lock, sirens blast. That was cool, we didn't get to test it though.
Also, our baby is actually pretty. Others mentioned it, and I think it was not out of obligation. One interesting thing is that Chastity and I look like kids (we are just barely adults, age wise) and some nurses made off hand remarks about us being too young to have kids. One nurse seemed to think we weren't too happy about it, like we were both 16 and punks who didn't want the kid. She right out asked us how old we are and I said we're both 21 and quite happily married. Then I turned my back to get something and she asked my wife if I had a good job. The nerve of that woman. My wife told me later that she bit her tounge from asking the nurse if her husband had a good job.
Last tiny rant. This hospital seems to have designed everything to make you believe that you're incapable of handling anything for yourself. Take for instance, going to the bathroom. When it's time to wipe, you look over at the transparent toilet paper and grumble a bit. But when you go to pull you realize that they have forgotten to grease the toilet paper holder and you need the strength of samson and the patience and tender touch of great grandma all at the same time in order to get the right amount to wipe your arse properly.
All said and done, we have a kewl new ch1x0r and I'm a happy man. :-)
While the nurse seemed rude you have to understand that medical people see a gigantic cross-section of the general population and thus may seem rude when they are actually a product of their environment. You are both very young and babies aren't cheap....most often such young couples with kids face a long tough financical struggle if they aren't realistic about it. My father was an engineer whose salary would never have supported 4 girls on its own so my mother worked as well. Nurses especially deal with a lot of harsh reality in hospitals...so forgive her bluntness as I'm sure she meant well in her own way since it's a damn difficult and unenviable job.
Re:congrats :)
geoff on 2002-02-14T20:19:41
bah, people should just learn to think before they speak.
on the cord note, the doctor asked me and I was like "whatever, just let me get back to my daughter already." it seemed strange to be focusing on the wrong side of the room once she was born.
at any rate, congrats. fatherhood is wonderful.Re:congrats :)
hfb on 2002-02-14T20:37:06
That hasn't stopped geeks from saying dumb things or posting porn to mailing lists. It's no worse than people asking just marrieds if the bride is pregnant or asking singletons how their love life is....irritating but not worth getting your panties in a bunch over.
Re:congrats :)
geoff on 2002-02-14T21:35:37
:)
Maybe this is standard practice now in hospitals.
Do a google search for more info. I don't remember the details any more - just that it's important.
Re:Keep the cord!
pudge on 2002-02-14T21:25:15
It's not standard practice, and costs thousands of dollars, and most insurances won't cover it. Viacord seems to be one of the biggest companies that does it. It can be life-saving, but in most cases it won't be, and the cord blood will either be tossed after 15-20 years, or it can be donated (I don't know if you can get a tax writeoff if you do donate it later... probably not).
As to cutting the cord, I've learned long ago to let doctors and nurses know things up front. So before we start anything, I'll tell them what I won't be doing, so it won't be a distraction later on.
About 6 weeks left for me...
In retrospect, I should have said "Cool! Can I circumcise him too?" After three days of slow labor, we were pretty chummy with the staff.
Now
The natural birth class we took really prepared us for dealing with the nurses. Part of it is knowing about the stages of labor, what's expected, what they can do, and what you can do for yourself. The mothers who had C-sections and epidurals knew what they were getting into (and the fathers were prepared to make informed decisions). The mothers who went natural also knew what they were getting into, and were able to defend themselves against nurses who wanted to impose their own personal view of what childbirth should be (above and beyond the purely medical aspects).
One of the revelations for us was that you can ask for another nurse. Almost every childbirth center is sensitive enough to the feelings of parents that if you feel it's just not working out, you can ask for someone else. Simply knowing that at any time you can fire the nurse can give you strength
The other thing that really helped us was having a doula. Most doulas you have to pay. Ours was the childbirth instructor, who did it for free. She was awesome, has been doing it for years, knew every trick for helping along labor, and knew what was reasonable and unreasonable for the nurses to expect. She stood up for us a couple of times, when we were so fried from lack of sleep and stress that we couldn't think how to refuse, we could only ask her for help.
That said, most nurses (that I've dealt with) have been great. These days they're a lot more sensitive and less with the "come on, come on, stick in the drugs, pull out the baby" assembly line mentality. But because the outcome is so great, it's really worth your while to be prepared in case you do get a dodgy one.
Congrats again. Our little girl gurgles hi to your little girl
--Nat
Re:Congratulations!
pudge on 2002-02-15T13:34:53
We have a midwife... she basically acts as your coach and doctor except for those times where the doctor is required. I know of "doulas" but the name sounds fruity to me. I fear that which I don't know.
And yeah, the natural childbirth class is generally useful if you're ignorant (like most of us are) even if you do want to go with drugs. You can still use the relaxation techniques, and you can learn what's going to happen, and if you're lucky, you get a teacher who re-arranges the time of class so you can get home in time to see the Patriots beat the Steelers in the AFC championship game (oops, is that a sore spot?:-).
My girl isn't gurgling to yourses, but she's wriggling... and she can't wait to get out and watch the tape of the Patriots Super Bowl that she experienced in utero. :-)
Re:Congratulations!
cwest on 2002-02-15T18:39:15
This would be so much more fair if, say, I had something usefull to say in return. Unfortunatley, there is no way to dispute the fact that your team beat my team.
I don't have some wise comment to make. Perhaps if we would have injured Brady correctly and he didn't play the Super Bowl... but we didn't.
This is the best I can come up with to vent my frustration. I suppose I could be ignorant and just say your team stinks and mine r0x0rZ but, that isn't all true.
All I'm left with till next season is "Grrumph" and:-/.
Next year...
As to the nurse, they do see and assist a large and varied group of people. However, that's her job, and part of the responsibility that comes with that job is to treat people as individuals and not as generalities.
The long and short of it is that she was rude. It's none of her friggin' business one way or the other, and in no way falls within even the most liberal interpretation of her job description. She was just being nosey, and she was doing it in a quite callous manner.
Now, before all of the feel-good crowd starts berating me and pummeling me about the head and shoulders, consider this: Exactly why did the nurse want to know if he had a good job? If his wife had said "no," was the nurse going to financially pitch in and help? For what purpose was she requesting the information?
Exactly. She had no purpose. She was being nosey. She was being rude. She was being suspicious. And she was being callous. Plain and simple.
I seriously doubt that I would have shown the restraint of your wife. Kudos to her.
Re:Congrats
pudge on 2002-02-15T18:01:41
My wife wouldn't have bitten her tongue, that's all I know.:-)
When Dweezil was born, Gail decided to have `natural child- birth'. At that time, the only hospital in Los Angeles that would allow this process to occur with a Dad in the delivery room was Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital.
When it was time for the Big Delivery, we experienced a slight delay - we had to fill out a mass of papers before they'd let us in, riddled with irrelevant questions like: ``What religion are you?''
Gail looked at me and said ``What do we put?'' I said, ``Musician.''
That was the first thing that upset the admitting nurse. The second thing to spoil her afternoon was when she asked: ``What are you going to name the child?'' Gail said, ``Dweezil.''
Gail's got a funny looking toe which had been the source of family amusement so often that it had aquired a `technical name': it wasn't really a toe - it was a ``Dweezil.'' I thought then and continue to think today, that Dweezil is a nice name. Fuck the nurse if she didn't like it.
The nurse pleaded and pleaded with us not to name the child Dweezil. Labor pains and all, she was going to make Gail stand there unless we gave her another name to put on the form. I couldn't see letting Gail suffer just to argue the point, so I rattled off an assortment of names of guys we knew: IAN (Underwood) DON (van Vliet) CALVIN (Schenkel) EUCLID (James ``Moterhead'' Sherwood) As a result Dweezil's original birth certificate name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa. The nurse thought that was okay.
In spite of this harrowing experince, we always called him Dweezil. He was five years old when he discovered the `real names' on his birth certificate.
Dweezil was very upset, and demanded that steps be taken to rectify this tragedy. We hired an attorney and had his name legally changed to Dweezil.
