Our hospital experience, pt 3
Along with silliness like the milk of magnesia episode, there were serious breaches of communication as well, in addition to even more egregious errors of non-communication. Once Owen was placed in the NICU, all word of him disappeared from our room. The head of the NICU, who seemed to be competent (and may well be), came to talk to us just before Owen went upstairs, reassuring us that he would be well-tended and -cared for, and told us a little of what he had planned for Owen's testing. After that, however, we got nothing. We have yet to receive any official report on the results of his tests from 3 weeks ago, and it is only on faith that we know any were actually done to completion. (I'm sure the billing department will make sure we pay for them, but no one has ever given us a complete list of the tests run.)
Our visits to NICU were fraught with apprehension, as one might imagine--this is where the frailest of the frail are worked on, and hope is virtually the sole currency of emotion, at least for the parents. To all appearances, Owen had (and has) nothing wrong with him, and the few reports we did get from the nurses in NICU were positive (that is, the tests were negative). But "At VVR Hospital, nothing can be done completely correctly!" As mentioned before, TBO (and I) had wanted Owen to be breastfed as much as was healthy, and despite the bluing, the two of them had started off perfectly. We had seen all the signs declaiming VVR's support of breastfeeding, and had personal knowledge of others' past experiences along these lines. But alas, things run differently up at NICU. When we first went up to feed Owen, we found out he couldn't be disturbed because of the delicate nature of the sleep testing he was undergoing--including our feeding him. That should have been a big clue to us that all was not going to go well for our plan, because this was a 12-hour (or maybe even a 24-hour) long test, and newborn babies can not go that long without eating. Due to our (or at least my) lack of knowledge and sleep, however, we didn't say anything at that time. We had also placed our faith in VVR's crack team of physicians and nurses to know what was best, all evidence so far to the contrary. (Remember, this was only a day+ since he was born, so we didn't have much negative yet to go on.)
Over the next day or so, TBO and I made our regular pilgrimages to NICU to try and breastfeed Owen, to less and less success. The lactation consultants and nurses simply encouraged TBO to try harder and gave continual instruction on proper procedures each time. Unfortunately, we weren't told why Owen might have begun shying away from the breast when he had done so well previously. The result was that TBO began to doubt her body's abilities unnecessarily. On one occasion, we found out that during his whole stay in NICU, Owen had been getting formula fed to him via bottle, even though he had a cute little 3x5 card stuck to his crib saying, "I'm a breastfed baby!" Apparently, the mantra in NICU is, "Feed the babies by any means necessary", regardless of parental desires.
We found that out most strikingly when we ventured up one evening to find out he had just been fed. We asked when he was scheduled to eat next and was told "10:30", so we agreed that we would come up to breastfeed at that time. In fact, we planned to get up there 1/2 an hour early, just to be sure we could do so. 10:00 rolled around and we showed up promptly at NICU ready to go. We were met with, "Gee, I'm sorry, we just finished feeding him!" Um, what? "Oh, yeah, we feed on demand here."
I cannot tell you how pissed we were and are, because the effects of NICU's policy have overwhelmed our ability to speak. They had been bottle-feeding him formula for 1 1/2 days straight by that point--without telling us--meaning that he had been taken off our breastfeeding plan for about 12 or so consecutive feedings at the beginning of his life. It's certainly possible that Owen would not have taken to breastfeeding too well anyway, or that TBO's body might not have been able to do so, either, but VVR's NIC unit have pretty much killed any chance we had of finding out. It's not as if we were on the f&*^ing moon, either--all they had to do was call down 3 floors to our room whenever Owen needed feeding, and we would have come up in a flash. And for them to make us feel as if TBO wasn't trying hard enough? Unconscionable. Infuriating. Enraging.
Things pretty much spun out of control after that, with us noting more and more quirks of inconsistent behavior among the employees of VVR.
Next: VVR follies, a tragedy.
Our visits to NICU were fraught with apprehension, as one might imagine--this is where the frailest of the frail are worked on, and hope is virtually the sole currency of emotion, at least for the parents. To all appearances, Owen had (and has) nothing wrong with him, and the few reports we did get from the nurses in NICU were positive (that is, the tests were negative). But "At VVR Hospital, nothing can be done completely correctly!" As mentioned before, TBO (and I) had wanted Owen to be breastfed as much as was healthy, and despite the bluing, the two of them had started off perfectly. We had seen all the signs declaiming VVR's support of breastfeeding, and had personal knowledge of others' past experiences along these lines. But alas, things run differently up at NICU. When we first went up to feed Owen, we found out he couldn't be disturbed because of the delicate nature of the sleep testing he was undergoing--including our feeding him. That should have been a big clue to us that all was not going to go well for our plan, because this was a 12-hour (or maybe even a 24-hour) long test, and newborn babies can not go that long without eating. Due to our (or at least my) lack of knowledge and sleep, however, we didn't say anything at that time. We had also placed our faith in VVR's crack team of physicians and nurses to know what was best, all evidence so far to the contrary. (Remember, this was only a day+ since he was born, so we didn't have much negative yet to go on.)
Over the next day or so, TBO and I made our regular pilgrimages to NICU to try and breastfeed Owen, to less and less success. The lactation consultants and nurses simply encouraged TBO to try harder and gave continual instruction on proper procedures each time. Unfortunately, we weren't told why Owen might have begun shying away from the breast when he had done so well previously. The result was that TBO began to doubt her body's abilities unnecessarily. On one occasion, we found out that during his whole stay in NICU, Owen had been getting formula fed to him via bottle, even though he had a cute little 3x5 card stuck to his crib saying, "I'm a breastfed baby!" Apparently, the mantra in NICU is, "Feed the babies by any means necessary", regardless of parental desires.
We found that out most strikingly when we ventured up one evening to find out he had just been fed. We asked when he was scheduled to eat next and was told "10:30", so we agreed that we would come up to breastfeed at that time. In fact, we planned to get up there 1/2 an hour early, just to be sure we could do so. 10:00 rolled around and we showed up promptly at NICU ready to go. We were met with, "Gee, I'm sorry, we just finished feeding him!" Um, what? "Oh, yeah, we feed on demand here."
I cannot tell you how pissed we were and are, because the effects of NICU's policy have overwhelmed our ability to speak. They had been bottle-feeding him formula for 1 1/2 days straight by that point--without telling us--meaning that he had been taken off our breastfeeding plan for about 12 or so consecutive feedings at the beginning of his life. It's certainly possible that Owen would not have taken to breastfeeding too well anyway, or that TBO's body might not have been able to do so, either, but VVR's NIC unit have pretty much killed any chance we had of finding out. It's not as if we were on the f&*^ing moon, either--all they had to do was call down 3 floors to our room whenever Owen needed feeding, and we would have come up in a flash. And for them to make us feel as if TBO wasn't trying hard enough? Unconscionable. Infuriating. Enraging.
Things pretty much spun out of control after that, with us noting more and more quirks of inconsistent behavior among the employees of VVR.
Next: VVR follies, a tragedy.
posted by bryduck at 11:28 AM
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