It's Slipping In!

It's not like we've seen on TV and in the movies.  It must have once been though.  Mom in the delivery room doing all the work, and dad pacing in the waiting room with other expectant fathers; cigars if the doctor says it's a boy, and disappointment if it's a girl.  Depending on how important he was, maybe dad wasn't even at the hospital during the birth.  He may have been at work waiting for that teletype from Japan...or something (I don't even know what a teletype is, but it was important enough at one time to make you miss your child's birth).  He'd get a phone call after the delivery informing him he was now a father.  I think that was the 50s.  I'm glad that has changed.  I, of course, was thrilled to see both my little beauties enter the world.  Was overjoyed to actually be allowed in the OR while all the action went down.  That's different too.  The girls were born in an operating room, and it wasn't a surprise that we were having twins.  My grandmother told me that when her twins were born, the doctor caught the first one, the second yelled "Surprise!" as she tumbled out and hit the floor.

After they made their debut, the girls stayed in our room while my wife healed.  Family came to visit the girls directly, not view them lying in a nursery with dozens of other babies.  We had 3 days in the hospital, which I guess isn't bad seeing as how some mothers were discharged the same day they came in.  If my wife had given birth in the 50s she would have lounged in the hospital for 2 weeks, leaving me to eat TV dinners and de-lint my own fedora at home alone (or if Mad Men is to be believed, with my busty secretary).  Honestly, I think the 50s have us beat there.  Not the parents segregation part of it, but the time in convalescent care.  My wife would have loved to take more time in the hospital while nurses swarmed and fussed over her babies.  Throwing us all together right away and forcing mom and dad to take care of newborns when mom can't even sit upright was really, really hard.  Health care cut backs, I guess.  Nurses only came by if we pushed the panic button, which was not to be used for such things as diaper changes or re-swaddling.

Breastfeeding...that's changed.  Well, changed, then changed again.  Women have breasts.  For a long time they were used to feed babies.  There were no books or classes or lactation consultants.  You were on your own, maybe with a goat or cow if for some reason your milk never came in.  Later, science stepped in.  Formula became the rage and breasts (which were relabelled tits for marketing reasons) became the jiggling, bouncy, play things of the free love era.  Now, once again, breastfeeding is being touted as the best method for feeding the little ones.  There are posters scattered throughout the maternity ward claiming that breast milk increases immunity to disease, cancer, improves IQ and strength...basically creates little super humans.  But there is a catch.  It's no longer as simple as lifting an infant to your chest.  There are hundreds of books, seminars, and classes.  Lactation consultants come to the hospital bed to mash and squeeze mommy's breasts before slamming baby's face in to the battered flesh.  Information is so confused on this subject that each consultation we've had (always with a different lactation expert) leads us in a new direction.  Burp, don't burp, sit the baby upright, make sure the baby is reclined comfortably, football hold, cross-craddle, tandem feeding, mommy should use pillows, no pillows, hand pump the breast while feeding, only kneed the breast when the baby is not suckling, hand pumping upsets the baby...so much information just leaves mommy's head spinning and baby frustrated.  There's a lot of pressure for everyone involved.  Many women who wish to breastfeed are unable to do so and feel this sense of failure at being unable to provide the best brain-boosting, super human creating option for their babies.  So I have no idea whether this is a good change or a bad change, and I have no idea what information to believe.  All I know is we need to feed our babies and we are going to do it however we can.

There is one thing that I think everyone can agree is an improvement in childcare; the thermometer.  I had to take one of the twin's temperature the other night.  I have a digital ear thermometer for this purpose.  I placed the soft tip of the instrument in the baby's ear and in 1 second, I had a temperature measurement.  When I was a child we had 2 kinds of thermometers:  oral and rectal.  Oh god, how I hope there actually was two types...The only reliable method, as far as hospitals were concerned, of taking a temperature was rectally and my mother, as an emergency nurse who followed the hospital code.  There were very few "stay at home from school sick days" for me.  If I complained about not feeling well, my mom shoved a lubed glass rod up my butt.  This occurred long after I was an infant.  I remember being old enough to yell "It's slipping in!"  To which my mother would reply calmly, "No it's not, I've got it."  It didn't matter how firmly her grasp was though, I could feel my bottom gobbling up that glass rod, dragging it deeper into my core where it could properly measure my temperature.  There was a benefit to that torture...I rarely get sick now, and won't complain about not feeling well unless I am very close to death.