Hospitals are Barbaric!!! Date Thursday, April 18, 2024 - 10:54 PM PST Topic Rant I am convinced that hospitals in America are COMPLETELY BARBARIC!!! Under the trappings of technology and soft colors and gentle voices, these people often seem to be out to see just how much discomfort you can take! Late appointments suck. Late appointments for an ultrasound which you are eagerly awaiting suck even more. But what is the suckiest of the sucky is a half-hour-late appointment for an ultrasound for which you had to prepare by FILLING YOUR BLADDER!!! What is this, some high-tech form of Chinese Water Torture? Imagine having to pee - to PEE SO BAD that you are squirming and writhing and CRYING sitting there in your waitingroom chair, while pregnant women and receptionists look uncomfortably on. Imagine knowing that somewhere, SOMEWHERE, there is a bathroom for the asking, but, for all you know about ultrasounds, if you go pee and get relief, you will never get to see the picture of your baby, never find out your real due-date, and incur the wrath of the entire hospital! Imagine watching the slow minutes tick by, 30 of them, as people who arrived AFTER you go happily into the hallowed recesses of the back rooms, where are located wonderful things like ultrasound machines and TOILETS!!! Imagine the receptionist taking pity on you, and saying you can go to the bathroom, just don't pee all the way! DON'T PEE ALL THE WAY!!!??? How do you do that? I haven't been doing my Kegels for that long yet! Somehow I managed not to pee all the way. It just made me feel worse. FINALLY, the nurse arrived, took me to the hallowed sanctuary, smeared the goop on my tummy, and I forgot all discomfort as I watched my little baby's heart beat. Unfortunately, I have about one month longer to wait than I thought. Damn. But it was SO BEAUTIFUL!!! I SAW MY BABY!!! Then they tell me. Since my baby is so small, they can have a more accurate ultrasound using the probe, which DOES NOT REQUIRE A FULL BLADDER!!!!!!!!!!! I could have slain the entire hospital. Oh well. At that point, as long as I was allowed to pee ALL THE WAY I could forgive them of even murder. Then, of course, I got poked and prodded and got samples taken of just about everything you can take a sample of. Turns out I have a dangerous blood-type, so I'll have to get shots so my body won't attack my baby's body. But otherwise, everything seems to be fine and normal. So my due-date is July 9th! I was hoping for early June, but oh well. A couple bits of miscellanious info. - I am getting a new roommate - a girl named Charlotte and her 1-year-old son Zavier. She's great! And really supportive! Her baby's father is a bit of a dead-beat, too, so she can help me stand up for myself. So the BF is going to be outnumbered now. He better watch his step! Second bit of miscellanious info. - I have discovered that my kitten Ophelia is not a girl after all. So now, due to it's comic and psychotic tendencies, I have decided to name it after the clown whose skull Hamlet soliliquized over Ophelia's grave - Yorick. It suits the crazy cat to a T. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=196