A friend of mine is a nurse in Labor and Delivery. She has been posting some of the stories that have happened to her and her co-workers as well as some that circulate through the nursing staff. On her latest post someone linked to this site. I'm hoping that none of the mothers on here would ever wind up on this blog. I was there when my sister and sister-in-law gave birth to my six nieces and I thank the gods that I'll never have to go through that. At the same time I can't believe what some of these women put the nursing staff through.
Woah, some of those stories are quite... amazing, although, I guess not that surprising when you think about it.
I really like the ones where she talks about the mothers telling the doctors/nurses that her due date is wrong because her husband was out of town for two months at that time. Oops?
I liked this one: Not quite logically, but some of them reminded me of one of my midwifes (I went through several shifts and got to know the whole stuff, repeatedly getting comments like, "Oh my, you're still here?") telling me how the dads trying to film the birth fainted two times as much as the guys who were, say, holding the woman's hand. It also reminded me of a friend who told us, while his highly pregnant girlfriend sat next to him, that "I think we're going to St Francis, I'd say when labor starts, we'll walk the short way there, it's supposed to help, and I like that they have children's intensive care nearby." She, timidly and offended at the same time: "Thanks for informing me..." Some of the stories are a little sad.
I know of a woman who recently gave birth who in high falutin terms stated: "Oh I won't be changing the baby's nappy. The baby will just have to wait till my husband gets home." There really should be an exam!
I don't have any kids of my own and I've still changed nappies. Quite a few of them, in fact. That woman has issues. My older brother, who has three girls, doesn't like changing them but will in cases of emergencies. I don't really know anyone who enjoys changing nappies, but hey, it goes with the territory.
mmm all/ most of those birthing stories where american and hospital related! am a homebirthing mum so all seem a bit icky!! home birth own birth!!
Well, also bear in mind that the stories are told by an American nurse and are only told when something is "worth telling", so we only get the negative or weird ones, not the hundreds of perfectly easy simple births that take place there every day/week/month/year. Imagine a blog full of posts that just go "another health baby boy born today, loving parents, easy delivery"... Bo-ring. Like many things, Homebirth has its pro's and con's, and like many things, for every number of perfectly responsible sensible people doing it properly and having a great exprerience, you will also get a dose of idiots doing it for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way, with bad or even catastrophic results. I know a midwife who assists women with homebirths and she has quite a lot of stories of craziness, stupidity and cock-ups, but she also has a lot of great heart-warming stories about all the times everything went right, as I'm sure our American nurse does.
I agree with Katcal, this blog reads more as a venting place for the extraordinary. Although there were one or two sentenced when I thought the relief of the stuff was obvious when they got someone an epidural... that shouldn't be the reason to give it. As for home births/ hospital birth, is kind of a similar discussion pattern to school medicine versus alternative medicine. They both may have their merits - see Katcals post, but the versus many people put between them annoys me greatly. Home birthing and alternative remedies - if you can, wonderful. School medicine is for musts. The system would work better if people -both staff and patients- weren't doing so many things because they can do them, not because they must do them. But sometimes, you don't get around them. It gets kind of annyoing when those who could have a home birth act superior towards those who didn't, for whatever reason. Not saying you do, but there are cases. The next stage is moms without epidural against moms with epidural, then comes moms with natural birth contra moms with cesarians. It's sometimes rather silly. (Not saying they all take part, but you can see them continuing towards "Mine walked first..." from there...) :lol:
Well, yep, Doctors and Nurses are no more exempt from containing the same dose of idiots than any other profession or group of people, alas.
Hey yep i chose to have a home birth & luckily got what i wanted this dosent mean i dont realise the need for doctors & nurses when you need them!! just that i support womens/ families choices! its about what works best for the people involved!! i just happen to live in a country where home births are accessible whereas in other places they are not so! plus my sister was an independent midwife for 15years!! so that may alter my views slightly having said that my other sister chose to have baby # 3 at home because of the ways she had been treated with numbers 1 & 2!!
wilva quick netiquette tip: hold back on the exclamation marks, the 10 you've used in four lines makes you look overexcited when essentially your just agreeing with Kat and Hsing... Anyhoo... As a non-mother and a watcher of too much oprah, one of the biggest mother competitions I've seen is the stay-at-home vs working mother issue. One side accuses the other of not loving their kids enough while the other says that just being a mother is a lose of identity. You can't win, whatever you chose someone's going to disagree with you. So you can do the best you can. I'm gonna be a working mother if i can. but I have a job where there is a enough flexibility to do this and I'm reasonably well-paid. I'm lucky most people its an essential rather than a choice to work.
Could you imagine having to go back into work after a co-worker, or boss, just read a very unflattering blog about them from the day before? I would say that it's the only way for her to keep her job and probably her health. My mom was going to have a natural, home-birth with my little brother. She was in labor for 36 or so hours with the midwife when they decided that it might be time to go to hospital. They did have a hospital set up to handle difficulties and problems in case they arose. She wound up having to have c-section but that's what saved John's life. He was a very active baby and had gotten the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. If he had delivered naturally it would have killed him.
... I hate to sound like a wuss, but after 36 hours in labor - no matter how pro-naturalness I was in the beginning, - what you'd hear from me would be "Drugs, drugs, give me DRUUUUUGS!!!!!!" And Nate - I hope your friend keeps posting - those stories are awesome! (And if I get caught reading them at work, it's your fault for posting them :wink
There was the time an ER nurse refused to let a doctor examine me for what turned out to be a severe urinary tract infection. I was having extreme abdominal pain and urinating lots of blood - The nurse said I was having my period.
Sorry, Inna, but this isn't my friend. My friend's blog was just where I found this blog. And I believe that I would be crying for drugs if I thought I was going into labour. For one thing, I'm a guy and that shouldn't happen. Of course the drugs I would want would more than likely be for mental stability more than anything else. Maybe some fried drogs pills.
Oh yes because periods should be painful donchaknow its our burden for tempting Adam, the big wuss bag who apparently can't take responsibility for his actions it has to be the fault of the only other person around...and every woman must pay for his irresponsibility. Typical. Anyhoo, most nurses are great. However, those that think they should be the only medical treatment available and that doctors are a waste of space are scary.
hey spiky, i was overexcited actually whatever way & style you parent in people are going to compare & judge what you do & dont do. parenting seems to be the one job in the world where everyone has an opinion on what you do. which makes for some interesting anthropological observations on the nature versus nuture debate ( for me anyway).
