You know, I remember Ricki’s birth like it was yesterday. We were told the diagnosis immediately, and I am glad I was. (Why that is so is not important right now.)
Anyway, after I had been cleaned up, Ricki taken to ICU (because she had turned blue in my arms), I was taken to the recovery area. Only one other new mother was there, and she seemed to be very tired. [ I couldn’t help thinking :”Does she know how lucky she is?”] The nurse came in, and gave me that “pitying look”, my first experience of being viewed as an “unfortunate”. She said “Do you want to talk?”
-“No,I’m O.K.”, I answered. I instinctively bolted from the “pity party”….
About half an hour later, another midwife entered. After taking my blood pressure (with a smile), she said “You must be worried about your baby…”
Yes, I guess so. Screaming for the nurse to come cause your child is blue is no picnic.
But the point here is, that she didn’t give me a pity reaction, but a chance to explore where I was at. So to HER I yes was able to open up, and express some of my concerns. It turns out that she herself has a special needs child. Figures…..
The nicest story I have ever heard of a parent being told “THE NEWS” was when a doctor, holding and stroking the baby, mentioned that they had some concerns…. The non-verbal message being that this is a child, a loveable child.
So hospitals, note. No pity parties.
Just the truth, with a bit of warmth.
4 comments:
Hi,
You hit the nail on the head regarding pity. RivkA of Coffee and Chemo has said similar things.
Do you have any comments on the criticism of Palin, that she is running for VP with a young baby with DS? You can post on my blog if you like.
Basically I wish they would drop the teenage pregnancy and "wonder mother" stuuf (depending what side they are on), and start discussing ISSUES.
I think it's all how you look at it, your perspective. Two people can be told the exact same thing and each one can take it differently. If another person would have been told "You must be worried about your baby" They could have taken it to mean that the lady was saying your worried about your baby because it has DS and you didn't expect that. Or something like that. So everyone likes hearing different things. For others the pity helps them feel stronger, as if to say, I don't need the pity I can really cope and therefore the pity serves as a reminder of how capable you really are.
I have yet to have met a parent who enjoyed being subject of a "Pity party"....
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