February 8, 2011

Nurses

For the most part I loved my stay at the hospital. The first of three baby nurses was great. She advised me on the normal stuff when it came to breastfeeding and had suggestions about foreseen problems. She was overly helpful and very nice. But I don’t have anything nice to say about the other two nurses. The second nurse just wasn’t friendly or helpful. She just made me feel uncomfortable. She even stood and watched me breastfeed. I mean when it was my first go at it I understood because I had never done it before and appreciated the pointers. But this woman didn’t say anything to me let alone give me advice. The third and final nurse to “assist” us was the worst. She seemed friendly but by the end of our stay I realized that she was a tad bit on the forgetful side. The first thing that put me off was she made me stop nursing Joaquin so that she could take him to see the pediatrician. I know that the doctor was making his rounds at that time but they had just urged me to breastfeed as long as the baby wanted and stressed how crutial it was to nurse him at that point so that he would get used to it. They gave me a four pack of ready-made formula in case I would need it. I didn't want it; I was determined to breastfeed but whatever. When they brought him back from the nursery we were given the go ahead to head home. I started packing up when I noticed that only three of the four bottles of formula were there. I was curious as to if it had just fallen out of the cart or if they had used it, but I kept my mouth shut and didn’t say anything. I just wanted to get home.
After getting home, Joaquin started spitting up. You know, the thick white stuff you'd only see after feeding a baby formula. It could've even been from breastmilk but seeing as how my milk hadn't come in yet, I knew that nurse had used the missing bottle of formula.
As for my nurses, one was super great while the other shouldn’t have been allowed to work. The night shift nurse had the shakes so bad that it caused her voice to shake. It was almost as if she had Parkinson’s. She would start talking randomly about only God knows what and it didn’t even seem like she was directing the “talk” to anyone real. It kind of seemed like she had “invisible friends.” Of course she had to be the one to take out part of my IV. I was so scared that she was going to rip it out of my arm! That’s how bad her shakes were.
My mom ended up staying with me that night while my husband was at work. She told me that when she left that morning Nurse Shakes was talking to herself. She was sitting down the hall from the other nurses all alone using an iPod. She was talking about how so and so has been pregnant for a year and still hasn’t had her baby. And then she went on talking about something else. My mom just walked away and soon heard the nurse say “Well, goodbye!” She said it was really freaky and agreed with me that she shouldn’t be working, let alone as a nurse.

After a few days the hospital called me to check on how the baby and I were doing and to allow me to give opinions of went at their facilities. Oh man! It was finally my chance. So I let this lady know about the worst of the baby nurses [who gave Joaquin formula when I told her not to] and the nurse with Parkinson’s. I didn’t remember the name of the baby nurse but I knew when her shift was. Thankfully the lady on the phone seemed just appalled as I was about both nurses and said things would be done thanks to my complaints! Wahoo!
So hopefully, if I ever go back to that maternity ward those ladies won’t be there.

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