My OB said WHAT?

[Jynuine]

I found this website today called My OB Said What? and Im TOTALLY cracking up... mostly at the stupid remarks of naive nurses and doctors but it also makes me reflect on the atrocities I've gone through in my own birthing experiences.

I remember delivering my 4th in a South Florida hospital that was one of my births from hell. After my OCD neurotic midwife induced me without my permission and then denied me an epidural when I went into Pit shock because, 'They will section you here", I finally pushed him out and then begged for pain relief since the Pitocin was still running through my veins. I hadnt even named him yet and I couldnt hold him I was so exhausted and in pain.

After passing out at around 8:40am and having the nurse wake me a bit later, bloody still from a full night of laboring and refusing to allow me to shower, she puts me in a wheelchair, piles my stuff on me and then wheels me out into the public halls into an elevator with strangers up to the postpartum floor to the shared room I was going to be in. The woman in there was watching Jerry Springer and every other sound was *beep!* Beep beep beep beep!*.

I crawled into bed, and just before I passed out again she sounded off these instructions on how to call them with number lines consisting of 5 numbers like... "...call 77465 to get the nursery...".

I woke back up at 2pm not knowing where anyone was where my baby was, nothing. My husband had to go home to be with our other 3 whom a complete stranger was watching because we had only been living there for 30 days and didnt know anyone.

So I pressed the little button on my bed to call the nurse and the conversation went like this:

*Beeeep!*

NURSE: "Yes."

ME: "Hi *clears throat*... wh... where's my baby?"

NURSE: *pause* "...Who IS this???"

ME: "Im ...the mom... I don't know where my baby is..."

NURSE: " I already TOLD YOU that you had to dial *sounds off a set of numbers* and that once you get your baby we dont take em back, they stay wit you the rest of the time."

ME: "Im sorry, I've just had a very painful and long hard labor and Im very medicated, I cant see the whiteboard can someone please just tell me how I find my baby?"

NURSE: "Dial such and such number, but again we wont take them back after we bring them to you."

ME: "Ok, I've been 'warned' thank you..."

*dial the nursery on my phone and nurse answers*

NURSE: "Yes?"

ME: "Hi, I am looking for my baby?"

NURSE: "....WHO IS this???" (with the same annoyed attitude the other nurse had)

ME: "Im the mother?"

NURSE: "What's the baby's name... but once we bring them you are stuck with them. You dont send em back."

(by this time Im ready to cry)

ME: "I ... havent even named him yet... *sniff*... my name is Jyn, please Im just trying to find him."

NURSE: "Ok... hold on......... ok... ohhhhh... you're the fever-baby-mama .... we need to keep him a little longer cuz he gotz a fever."

ME: "The what....?"

So apparently the L&D nurse attending to my birth put him on such a hot incubator that he had a fever of 101. My husband still jokes that she was only there for the BBQ (she was a Jamacain woman with wrapped hair half a mile long and just meandered around when the midwife was calling for smelling salts and the such as I started hyperventilating... she probably knew my midwife was a joke and was just checked-out.)

The rest of my stay was just as bad if not worse. I was SO HAPPY to be leaving that hospital. I vowed never to have a baby in a Florida hospital again!

But hearing some of the things said to other moms! Man, sometimes....

[babygirlie]

oh... my... I am so sorry you went through that!

[miriam]

There used to be a thread around here with the same title. 

[moonfirefaery]

When we had our first, we were 19 and after an up-all-night labor (followed by 3 hours of being read literature and kept under bright lights for "observation" even though it was 2 AM), we finally got some rest when Corbin slept for six hours straight. There was only one problem... we didn't know how to wake him. So sleep-deprived brand new father Corey goes out to the nurse's station for some advice. Here is the conversation:

Corey: hey, um, how would you recommend we wake up the baby? she's trying to feed it

Nurse: FIRST OF ALL, it is not an IT, it is your SON. *brief lecture about growing up/fatherhood/etc*

Corey: yes, I know, that's... why we're trying to feed him, how should we wake him?

Nurse: Flick the bottom of his feet; that usually works.

So he tells me the conversation, and I'm like WTF?! We've been up all night, we JUST became parents, we're half-asleep, and she's lecturing you over a slip of the tongue? And she wants us to do WHAT to wake him? O.O

So I look at the sleeping precious Corbin for a moment and think, well, it has been six hours, he does need to eat. I lift up his tiny little baby foot and flick it softly. He squirms but stays sleeping. So I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let his little baby foot have it. His eyes pop open and he emits this heart-wrenching squeal of tortured pain that sounds just pitiful in his small voice. I couldn't bear it, so I rocked and shushed him back to sleep and lied that, oh yes, he woke up and ate.

Soon after we got home, we adopted a house rule: let sleeping babes lie. :)

[lookingforaname]

Very sorry about your experience - but Love the link! You should post it in the general Pregnancy forum and not just UC!

[Jynuine]

HAHAHAHA! Yeah! WOW, I know sometimes we have to follow our first initial reaction but as first time aprents we really feel like... who are WE to say what is normal and isn't?

BTW if you havent found out yet the best way to wake a baby to eat is to whisper to them and rub your nipple or finger on the side of their cheek  after squeezing some colostrum/milk into their mouth a little. That usually does it!

MAN... flicking a baby... I would be like, "Okay then! I know exactly who isnt coming within a mile of my baby now..."

[Jynuine]

Originally Posted by lookingforaname 

Very sorry about your experience - but Love the link! You should post it in the general Pregnancy forum and not just UC!

Absolutely! You can feel free to pass it on too. :)

[dayiscoming2006]

No surprise here. But, yikes!

Dumbest thing I and hubby were told, was that I was going to harm my second child because I was pushing on my hands and knees and should be on my back. She said that pushing on the hands and knees is not natural... 

Oh yeah, next dumbest thing I was told is that I didn't need to nurse my baby after the birth and could wait until the next day because babies don't need to eat right away. So, they made me wait 14 hours for the first feeding. 

I can probably think of more, but that's enough.

[lovinmy3]

Stupiest thing I've ever heard was when my friend told me her OB said that whatever a women's shoe size is that that is the maximum size baby in pounds that she can push out. For example if a women wears a size 7 shoe she is only capable of pushing out a 7lb baby. Unfortunately my friend believed that bull.

[howdeepistheocean]

Wow, reading those sure makes me feel relieved I don't have to subject myself to an OB!

 

[ElizabethE]

Yeah, that site is crazy! I love it, though. It really shows some shining examples of the common wisdom most of us are subjected to. The "thoughtful Thursdays" are nice...

[Turquesa]

I'm sorry, this killed me.  They're asking "who is this?" to a female voice on the phone inquiring about "MY" baby?  I'm no Holmes, Mason, Monk, or Colombo, but I'm guessing that's PROBABLY the mother. 

I find is so sad how some hospital staff treat you like access to your own flesh-and-blood child is a privilege and not a right.

Yes, MOSW is pretty hilarious.  It's great for women to have a way to laugh these hardships!

Originally Posted by Jynuine 

ME: "Hi, I am looking for my baby?"

NURSE: "....WHO IS this???" (with the same annoyed attitude the other nurse had)

ME: "Im the mother?"

[Turquesa]

Originally Posted by howdeepistheocean 

Wow, reading those sure makes me feel relieved I don't have to subject myself to an OB!

 

Although it's not as common, the site has some pretty outrageous comments from OOH midwives, too.

[MamaofLiam]

Thanks for sharing Jyn! Some of those comments are just cruel, and others are just flat out ridiculous.

My first and only birth was a home birth (that was wonderful!), but I had to be hospitalized overnight when I was 8 months pregnant after a pretty bad car accident. One thing that really caught me off guard was when they admitted me into L&D they told me I was lucky b/c I would have food and bathroom privileges. At first it didn't register and it really caught me off guard. I had no idea what they meant (probably b/c I was partly in shock from the trauma of the accident), but then I realized they meant they weren't going to fix me up with a catheter. When they told me that I felt like I was 3 years old or something ... "Oh lucky me, I get to use the potty and have a bite to eat." Those needs always seemed pretty basic, and I guess I just took them for granted.