September 6, 2004--My hospital birth experience

And now for another rant about my hospital birth experience:

When you have a home birth, you work with one, maybe two people. I always had a midwife and a midwife assistant. When you have a birthing center birth, you have a few more. Add a couple more assistants and a receptionist. When you birth in a hospital, you have your doctor, his nurse, the receptionists at the doctor's office, the doctor and the nurse you see when your doctor is on vacation, the ladies who schedule your appointments, the ultrasound technicians, the lady who draws your blood, the lady who files your paperwork, another lady who tells you about eating healthy when you are pregnant, and this is all before you have your baby!

Add on to that the pre-registration lady, the epidural interview lady, the anesthesiologist who talks to you before you have one, the ladies who check you in, the lady to file your paperwork, the nurse who straps the fetal monitor on you, the nurse who checks you to see if you are in labor and then takes you to labor and delivery, the labor and delivery nurse and about three other nurses, the anesthesiaologist who actually gives you the epidural, the doctor who is on call, another nurse to take care of the baby, a total of three nurses and three assistants to take care of you and baby during their shifts, the pediatrician, the nurse in charge of the nursery, the girl who brings you your food and another one who brings your menu in the morning, someone from the lab to take blood out of the baby, and one more nurse to take you out of the hospital when you are done. That's 40 people.
Now, it might sound nice, forty people all specializing in their little areas and there to serve you, but they never know what the last person told me! The labor and delivery nurse assured me that when they took my baby up to the nursery for evaluation, they would not give him any bottles or pacifiers or anything and that I would get him back in two hours.

The nurse who brought me to my room was sure I'd get him back in less than two hours. One to one and half hours was all it would take to warm him up and take his vital signs and give him his bath.
Two hours later, a nurse came in to tell me that they did his blood sugar test and it was low, and so they gave him some formula and then when his blood sugar comes back up, they'll give him a bath and then bring him in to me. I was so upset! The other nurse had told me they wouldn't give him anything. They didn't even ask me first! They just gave it to him. I finally convinced them that he didn't need a bath yet, and his brother and sisters were coming to see him so could they please just bring him to me without a bath!

Even still, it wasn't until after they had arrived and I called down to the nursery and asked them to bring him to me that they brought him in.