Taking On Too Much?

[SecretSquirrel]

My niece is going to have a baby any day now. Last night I was told she's taking Le Mans classes in preparation. I think it's awesome that even though she's in a delicate condition, she still finds time to practice for a 24 hour auto endurance race. I still don't see how it helps the kid, but it's cool.

 

[Gillard]

My niece is going to have a baby any day now. Last night I was told she's taking Le Mans classes in preparation. I think it's awesome that even though she's in a delicate condition, she still finds time to practice for a 24 hour auto endurance race. I still don't see how it helps the kid, but it's cool.

thanks, funniest thing i've read all week

 

[Peartree]

Thanks SS, I needed that today.

 

[shrox]

My niece is going to have a baby any day now. Last night I was told she's taking Le Mans classes in preparation. I think it's awesome that even though she's in a delicate condition, she still finds time to practice for a 24 hour auto endurance race. I still don't see how it helps the kid, but it's cool.

So, she's taking classes to learn to be "Da Man"?

 

[troj]

Wow! My wife is impressed!

Deb also wants to know how your niece is going to fit behind the wheel -- "Those cars are awfully small!"

-Kevin

 

[JoeG]

At least she'll be able to get to the hospital quickly.

 

[Evo666]

Le Mans! She's cool in my book

 

[MarkII]

And she already has her substitute driver with her. Which factory team is she on? When is she due to meet the pit crew?

Mark K.

 

[JDcluster]

I don't think they make a firesuit with a trap door built into them....



JD

 

[Pat_B]

In a somewhat related matter, I had a friend who told me one time that his sister was moving into a new condo*. You get the idea.

 

[luke strawwalker]

My niece is going to have a baby any day now. Last night I was told she's taking Le Mans classes in preparation. I think it's awesome that even though she's in a delicate condition, she still finds time to practice for a 24 hour auto endurance race. I still don't see how it helps the kid, but it's cool.

Yeah, those childbirth classes are something else... I went with my wife to humor her...

They start talking about all this stuff WE GUYS are supposed to do to "help" our wife give birth...

I'm like, "I learned the basics in the police academy-- if I wanted to "help" my wife give birth I'd just "help" her give birth in a barn, trapped in an elevator, or in a broken down car on the side of the road and save the $20,000 bucks you guys charge for me "helping" her do this in the hospital...

My wife starts talking on the ride home about what I'm supposed to do in the delivery room... I'm like "back the truck up... I'm not going to BE in the delivery room-- if God had wanted husbands in the delivery room, he wouldn't have made that nice waiting room just down the hall with the TV and comfy couches!" After enduring a stony stare, we "discussed" the matter. I truly argued the case well that it's tradition; men stay in the waiting room, pacing and nervous (or eating, watching TV, or asleep on the couches, but I left out that part!) waiting for news of the birth, upon receiving said news to hand out cigars and shake hands with the assembled strangers waiting patiently for their own news. It would be breaking tradition, er, impossible, um... darn near SACRILEGE for me, a male, to be present in the delivery room! Alas, my argument fell on deaf ears... As Dr. McCoy once put it, "in short, Captain Sir, they drafted me!"

So, the momentous day arrives... So, after she was induced and she laid around half the day, gradually getting worse and worse and finally laying in bed crying while singing church hymns to her ipod, I went searching for a nurse to administer more drugs... (to her preferably, but either one of us would do-- one or the other of us had to have some relief!) After hornswoggling a nurse in the hallway and extracting a promise that she'd deliver more drugs (how much am I paying for this lousy service again-- I mean, heck, even at the Chinese restaurant, the waiter comes around a couple times during the day to ask if I need more tea... seems like the nurses would check in more than at 10 and 2... ) the nurse finally arrives after a half hour and injects something into said victim (oh, sorry, my wife) and glances at some monitory-pulsey type stuff and splits... the doctor decides on a C-section an hour later...

So, now Jeff gets the deluxe tour-- including the operating room! (Oh boy, like I really wanted to see that!) So, after a search for some scrubs that would actually fit a 6-1 350 pound fatboy like me, (well, they SAID they fit-- THEY LIED!!!!) I help push the wifey into surgery (how much is this costing again??). Now, I've helped critically injured and dying folks at accidents; I've been hurt on the farm myself a few times and usually so long as it doesn't involve looking for detached body parts, I usually just wrap something around it and keep on working-- the best band-aids are made from shop towels and electrical tape doncha know... but I don't do well as a spectator at such things... when you're "doing something" the adrenaline kicks in and you just do what needs doing. Standing there watching, though, is another matter-- like when we had a "film night" in the academy after a week or so of first aid training-- guess who nearly passed out?? Yet I've helped people who were in their final moments (or nearly so) and not been freaked out...

So, I get the front row seat while they cut away on my wife... I turn my back to the table, stand by her head patting her head and holding her hand while they do their thing... shortly the Doctor asks "Would you like to cut the cord??" and I reply curtly, "no thank you; that's what YOU guys are getting paid for!". After a short clean-up and check out, they hand me a wiggling 10 pound 4 ounce baby girl, whom momma wants to see, so I lean down a bit so she can see. I kid you not, the baby turns her head and nearly lifts her head off my arm to look at momma, and then the baby is whisked away by the nurses to the nursery to do all that medical mumbo-jumbo they do to newborns... I stay with my wife (who is finished being sown up and looks rather like a deflated balloon laying on the gurney) as we're escorted to recovery...

Later, in the hallway, looking in the nursery window with my brother, we can hear Keira screaming and crying LOUDLY on the other side of the glass-- I comment that 'she has a good set of lungs'... my brother said, "man, she is MAD about something!--she takes after YOU!" That sinks in a minute, and I facepalm myself and go, "oh, s#!t... what have I got myself into??"

It's been all uphill from there...

Best wishes to your family Don... OL JR

 

[SecretSquirrel]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.... where's the obligatory story about driving a bus or cutting hay??? :roll:

 

[MysticalRockets]

Excuse me...

There is a reason why men were always sent to "go get hot water" by the midwives.

It takes time to get the water, get the kettle, get the firewood, build a fire, and heat up the water. By the time the water is hot, the baby has arrived.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Excuse me...

There is a reason why men were always sent to "go get hot water" by the midwives.

It takes time to get the water, get the kettle, get the firewood, build a fire, and heat up the water. By the time the water is hot, the baby has arrived.

IG-ZACK-LEE!!!!

Why, back in my day, men-folks didn't go nowhere near any darn delivery rooms-- that was strictly for the women-folks. Right as rain!

Men folks stayed in the waiting room where they belonged! Why, even when I was hatched, way back in '71, my Dad did the right thing and stayed in the waiting room where he belonged! In fact, they only let him in to see me and my mom after about 2 days, and even then he had to wear surgical scrubs, gloves, and a mask like he was about to do brain surgery! After all, I might have been exposed to a germ or something if he didn't wear a spacesuit... Mom got out of the hospital after 4-5 days I think...

Even after all that, my delivery only cost something like $500 or so.

When my sister came along in 76, men-folks still waited in the waiting room where they belonged. They let us in to see her the next day, sans the surgical outfits... but by now the cost had increased to $1,500. She got out of the hospital after 3-4 days IIRC...

My brother was hatched in 80. Men folks COULD come into the delivery room by that point, but no REAL MEN did... only hippies and guys who were whipped. Most men contented themselves in the waiting room. We were let in later that afternoon and could actually touch the baby. The cost had skyrocketed to like $6,000 or so, but by then we had insurance... Of course they ran you off after 2-3 days at most...

Nowdays, no waiting room, men EXPECTED to do everything, lousy service, and they shove you out the door as soon as the bleeding stops... and it costs $20,000 IF YOU'RE LUCKY!

Hmmm... and people wonder what's wrong with medicine...

Later! OL JR

 

[slogfilet]

Centrifugal birthing... I wonder...

 

[Gillard]

As i have expained to the wife, my job was that of the planner, i provided the blue prints (well half of them anyway) the relatively simple job of building the baby and then delivering the baby was in her department, as is the next twenty or so years, i will be there when the boy is a man and wants to go for a beer!

(not true really, i don't know if its a good or bad thing, but my best friend is five years old and calls me daddy)

both my kids delivery my C section, first was an emergency after 30 hours of labour, 13lb 10, wife just wasn't big enough in the pelvis to delivery him naturally. both kids had complications, first was in special care for a week with fluid on the lungs, hole in the heart, an infection etc, second was fine for the first few days and then had a tumour appeared and continued to grow, which took over about 20% of her face, gots of chemo and treatments later (max was 17 hospital visits to four different hospitals in three different counties) and she's healthy and about to take over the world- she's one tough cookie, and about to turn three.
on the plus side, did not cost a thing in medical bills (british national health service), and her treatment was ground breaking and is now used to help others in similiar situtions.

 

[MysticalRockets]

Centrifugal birthing... I wonder...

I have to learn to stop drinking soda while I read these things...

 

[BAR_Daddy]

Oh, come on now. I was at the birth of all four of my children and I was glad to be there. I did not miss a minute of any of their births. No dizziness either.

The first one (my darling daughter) was by C-section. The rest were VBAC. Each was truly a miracle.....Then they grow up:shock:

 

[luke strawwalker]

Oh, come on now. I was at the birth of all four of my children and I was glad to be there. I did not miss a minute of any of their births. No dizziness either.

The first one (my darling daughter) was by C-section. The rest were VBAC. Each was truly a miracle.....Then they grow up:shock:

That's good... truly happy for you...

But there are certain things that I just have no need or desire to ever see... and kids hatching is one of them... especially my kid...

I see enough of it dealing with cattle here on the farm... every so often I get stuck pulling a calf-- MAN I HATE THAT! I can do it and it doesn't bother me but it's just DARN HARD WORK, and messy and nasty as can be. Fortunately I haven't had to deal with a prolapsed uterus in a few years-- what a mess...
Did have a cow two years ago that couldn't deliver-- we checked on her at sundown and everything looked fine, but she ran off to the far end of the pasture. Next morning, we checked, dead calf halfway out. We finally got her under the trees and managed to pull the calf, but then she got pretty messed up in her pelvis or spine and couldn't get up. We carried her water, hay, and cattle cubes every day for a few days, shot her full of antibiotics and B-12, and hoped for the best. Of course she'd laid down in a low spot, and all 40 gallons of amniotic fluid pooled around her, and she worked it up into a slimy mud trying to get up while her back legs wouldn't work. The third day the flies got REAL bad, so we KNEW we had to move her or we'd lose her. We used the tractor loader and hay ropes to make a sling under her and get her up, sorta, though she slipped out of the makeshift "sling" and got rope burns on her hips that took all the hair off (which later grew back white), but we did get her moved over about 50 feet under another shade tree on clean ground; brought her more water and hay and cubes, and shot her full of antibiotics and B-12 again. I was frankly amazed she was still alive, and wondered every day what I'd find when I made the trek to the back pasture.

On the fourth day, I noticed a ring had been grazed around her; she'd been eating every blade of grass down to a half-inch tall, and since she couldn't get up, she just sorta ambled around in a circle. The next day she'd drug herself over a little further and eaten the ring into a peanut shape-- she was trying to get up but by this time the soreness and stiffness in her legs, and weakness in her legs and ankles were hampering her more than the nerve problems were. She'd try to get up, but her ankles were turned back (trying to stand on the FRONT of the hoof instead of the bottoms) so we took a wait and see approach, but the next day she'd get 95% of the way up but couldn't quite make it, and fall back down. So, we used the rope sling trick again and used the loader to hoist her up and lower her down on her back legs, moving her legs forward a bit to encourage the circulation and get her hooves stretched back on straight instead of turned under. We kept her hoisted for about an hour, and she was finally able to stand. We let the loader down and she could tentatively walk. We took the rope slings off and she wandered around a bit, but her hind end didn't really want to follow her front end. She finally got pretty well straightened out, and was doing better. After our daily treks to feed and water her and tend to her rehabilitation, my wife dubbed her "Queenie" since we waited on her like a Queen.

Next was the wondering whether she'd be able to conceive and deliver a calf, or whether she'd been too torn up. If she couldn't deliver a calf, she'd get a trip to the sale barn in short order. She conceived and delivered a heifer, but she didn't have much milk and didn't mother the calf very long, but the calf lived, and given that it was less than a year since her 'incident' I figure I'll give her another chance...

Still don't have any interest in HUMAN birth or medicine though... OL JR