Post by Jibini Kula Tumbili KujisalimishaPost by Dorothy J HeydtPost by Jibini Kula Tumbili KujisalimishaPost by Lawrence Watt-EvansEach baby was larger than the one before, too. My youngest
sister was huge -- somerthing like 11 lbs.. I was the fourth;
at over 9 lbs., I wasn't exactly small.
That was true for my mother, too. I was fourth (with on
stillborn), and was 12 pounds, 4-1/2 ounces (and she never let
me forget it). My father was infromed there would *not* be any
more children.
Ouch. I don't blame her.
Neither do I. IIRC, I was also two weeks late, and insisted on solid
food the day she took me home from the hospital.
Well, my 11-pound son was three weeks late. He didn't insist on
solid food at birth, but when he started teething we gave him a
chunk of hard salami, which he found very satisfactory.
My daughter got to *one* week late, at which point my doctors
said, "Not again! Here, take this pill, guaranteed to choke any
horse, and we'll put the railings up and let you get some sleep.
In the morning we'll induce." So they did, and my daughter
arrived about thirty minutes later. I have a picture of her at
about 30 seconds old, crossly opening one eye with an expression
of "What? You woke me up for *this?*"
Since her brother was staying with my sister-in-law and we wanted
to get everybody home as soon as possible, Hal went to the
pediatrician and asked if it was okay to take Meg home. He said,
"Well, you'll have to bring her back in tomorrow for the PKU
test. If you do that, yeah, you can take the baby home, if it's
okay with the OB to take Dorothy home."
Then he went to the OB and explained that we wanted to go home
that afternoon. The OB said, "Well, if it's all right with the
pediatrician ..."
Rather like the old parental strategy: "Go ask your
father/mother, dear, and see what he/she says."
So we went to the newborn nursery and, armed with two sets of
permissions, asked the nurses to wrap Meg up, we'd take her with
us. The elder of the two nurses was a starched old dragon whose
unspoken attitude was "Back when I was in training, we didn't let
anybody go home for two weeks!" But she was also trained to
accept the doctors' words as law, so she grumpily went off and
fetched the baby. And the younger of the two nurses looked at
her and said, ...
wait for it, wait for it ...
"Is she early, dear? She has the look of a baby who's about two
weeks early."
So it appeared Meg wanted to stay in for the full three extra
weeks too, only they wouldn't let her.
Due dates are Platonic ideals anyway, not to be relied upon too
heavily.
I remember a doctor we used to know (not as patients) who told us
some stories about when he was in OB/GYN. One was a woman who
came in at the beginning of her ninth month, and he'd taken a
look and said, "You're fully dilated. Let's get you into the
hospital (fortunately, across the street from his office). "I
can't do that!" she cried. "I'm supposed to meet my husband for
lunch!"
"You are Fully Dilated," he answered, "and you're going Into the
Hospital." And the baby arrived about half an hour later. Some
people have it easy. (I think it was not her first baby, and
it's possible she miscalculated.)
He said the first law of obstetrics was, "Never trust a multipara."
And the second law of obstetrics was, "Never trust a primipara
either."
And the time he was a shiny new intern, and he and his class were
doing the OB ward for the very first day. So the head of OB came
by and said, "Well, gentlemen, you've had a few hours on OB now,
and it's time for me to tell you how to distinguish true from
false labor."
And they all leaned forward eagerly, and he stood in front of the
swinging doors into the ward and said, "The way you distinguish
true from false labor is that true labor results in the delivery
of an infant." And vanished between the swinging doors before
they could react.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com