Saturday, June 7, 2008 Day 12

If I have one more nurse come up to me and ask if:  a)  I have any questions about lactation for her;  b) I'm pumping every two to three hours;  c) I'm eating well and drinking enough water;  d) if I have any other questions about lactation for her...  I'm going to scream!  The answers are:  a) no, b) yes, c) yes, d) no!!!  It's starting to make me even more self-conscious and defensive, if that's possible.  Not to mention, it doesn't do much for performance anxiety.

With Clare, the nurses have been wonderful.  We got kind of spoiled last week by having the same nurses for several days in a row.  Betty especially was able to work with us for a number of days and got to know us well.  Since we've moved away from the quarantined baby, it's been more of a revolving door so each new nurse feels she has to educate us about proper techniques in handling, diapering, temperature-taking, etc., and we have to educate her about ourselves, and that we aren't a couple cans short of a six-pack.  Last night, in fact, I almost screwed up Clare's weighing by still having my hands on her when I shouldn't have (she was fussing!  I couldn't just ignore it!), and the nurse physically grabbed my hands from across the isolette and took them off Clare and gave me a brief scolding.  !!  I took a couple deep breaths and didn't let my pride get the best of me;  the most important thing is how well they're taking care of Clare.  What we've discovered is that the nurses, because they deal with all sorts of people (including the quarantined baby's teen parents), they can't just assume we're all functioning, responsible, and contributing citizens who actively educate ourselves about caring for our babies.  And it's not like we show up flaunting our middle-class status:  while we're always clean, we dress pretty casually, and our gray hair doesn't seem to elevate us in any way either.  So, despite my puffy-chestedness at insinuations that I may be an incompetent mother, I completely understand the need for it and will gladly ignore it if my little girl is being taken care of by skilled, detail-minded professionals.  They can't afford--and the preemies can't afford--for the staff to make assumptions about our abilities.  This has been an interesting thing to learn.