A Rant

I was at the hospital to do rounds on my patient who delivered Christmas Eve and was now going home Christmas Day. There is a certain amount of teaching that needs to be done prior to discharge, especially with a young, first time Mom. I went in and taught about breast feeding and baby care. I addressed things for Mom to watch out for in herself. I talked about the prescriptions I give for post delivery pain and pretty much wrapped up my teaching. The nurse then comes in and goes over stuff again (literature shows that it takes three repetitions to "learn":). In the middle of the nurse's teaching, family arrives to see the baby. There are many people (13). There is a couch, two chairs and a stool in the room along with Mom's bed. I hear the nurse say very calmly and professionally "I'm doing some discharge teaching that will take a few minutes and I want Q to be able to pay attention so I'm going to have you all go down to the family waiting area and when I'm done, I'll come get you so you can visit." There is grumbling, milling, fussing and everyone leaves the room. As they pass by me I hear one of the older women in the group say "This is the stupidest hospital I have ever been in, it is just like yesterday when they wouldn't let us in after the baby was born. I'm hoping no one else has their baby here."

Now I shake my head in amazement. Yesterday, we put everyone out of the room for about 3 hours while we delivered, sewed up the bottom, and taught supported breastfeeding giving this young couple the very best family start we could. The exclusion was done at Q's request. Today, we asked them to stay out of the room so that the couple could focus on our teaching, so they can GO HOME where.everyone.can.see.the.baby and we are suddenly the bad guys. I find this frustrating and upsetting with no way to rectify the lack of knowledge and bad attitudes of the visitors. Huff

Time. . .Oh time, where does it go?

We were planning Thanksgiving the last time I wrote, and now we are thru Hannukah. Soon it will be 2010. This year has been full of births and babies as well as trial and tribulations. My work takes up a tremendous amount of my time. What time is left is often used up resting, dozing, and outright sleeping. I have this year been forced to learn new coping techniques in the workplace and although I am at last getting it figured out, it is still not very comfortable. I am naive when it comes to manipulation, mind control, and down right ugly human behaviors so it has taken me almost a year to realize that I'm not the one with the problem and I just need to focus on taking good care of the people who choose to see me and not worry about the ones who choose not to see me.

This year has been a wild one. In January I celebrated one year with a new knee. It still works great and does not pain me at all. From January to April I worked on a fitting bodice and then a wedding dress. It turned out beautifully. In May we married off our baby to a young man who appears to be good for her. They are talking making babies and we wish them good luck in this endeavor. In July we traveled by ocean liner Queen Mary 2) to England with our oldest daughter and her family. My first time out of the country. We had a glorious trip, but the flight home leaves something to be desired - sleep. Our home continues to be a place of peace and solitude where guests are always welcome. My work continues to take up too much time, but then I meet people out in the community for whom I have delivered children and some of them are 10 years old and growing up. Then, I realize that I got my wish and that was to live somewhere long enough to see the babies I delivered grow up. Then I realize that I will be 57 years old in 2010, and I don't see how that can be.