Swirling Thoughts #84 – advance registration – it only works if you bring the papers!

As we filled gas on the way to the hospital I suddenly realized…“The papers! We forgot the papers!” Somehow, in that moment, getting the hospital registration packet – with my sixty-some blood sample labels – seemed more urgent than anything else. “We must go back!” I told Bob, in a panic. Calm and almost laughing, Bob answered “Your water broke, sweetheart. We are already in Jerusalem. We are not going back.” I pleaded with him, “But they will YELL at me!” To which he smiled and said, “They probably will. Pshhhhhhhhh!”

And so it went. “What is your blood type?” Am I supposed to know this? I always call my sister-in-law when someone asks me this question. I don’t know why she can remember it and I can’t – maybe because of her medical training? Anyway, when I admit I’m not sure (saying you have the popular one is not enough, apparently) they ask for my papers. “I registered!” I assure the triage midwife, and then I whisper, “But I left my papers at home.” She looks at me sternly and I try to look pathetic. “Pshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

When the triage doctor asked the baby’s estimated size I was ready with the answer. “Seven pounds, thirteen ounces as of two weeks ago!” Pounds? Oh, you need it in kilos? Bob is trying to get a conversion on his Trio while the triage midwife is scratching her head and calling out a series of approximations in kilos and grams. The doctor questioning me, clearly unnerved by the lack of an understandable answer to his question moves on. “What was your glucose level?” I tell him excitedly that I passed the sugar test twice. “You have the numbers?” I confess meekly that I do not. “Pshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

A few more doctors and midwives “Pshhhhhhh”’ed me that night but ultimately I prevailed – I delivered a baby at Hadassa Ein Kerem blee (without) papers.

As it turns out, all that pshhhhh-ing was just a warmup. When I showed up at the pediatrician the day after they sent me home he asked me if I’d registered the baby at the Kupat Cholim. But I just got home yesterday! Pshhhhhhhh! Did I know her birth weight? Excited and proud I announced, “Eight pounds thirteen ounces!” Pshhhhhhhh. He wanted kilos. But this time I had a paper – something they gave me in the hospital and told me to hold on to – a little birth chart for my not so little baby. “Four kilos and ten grams…Ooooh-wah!!”