Ronan vs bureaucracy
Ronan needed a minor procedure while we were in the hospital. An hour after his scheduled collection time, and four hours after his last feed, a nurse came to get him. He was not happy.
The operation went well, and 30 minutes later, he returned, famished. We fed him. He passed out. When he woke, he needed a clean diaper. I asked the nurses' station if I could shadow someone. I had changed fewer than 20 diapers at this point, none of which dealt with an incision.
The nurse who had taken Ronan to surgery walked in. She had the warm confidence of someone who still finds joy in a task she's performed thousands of times.
She hunched over the bassinet as she undressed Ronan. I asked a question, and the nurse lifted her head to respond. Before she turned back to the matter at hand, a solid stream hit her square between the eyes.
Embarrassment replaced confidence. She struggled to tame the stream. Moments later, bearings regained, she toweled off, then opened the diaper once more. She raised Ronan's legs, and a smack echoed through the room. He had pooped with such force that it hit the back of the bassinet and everything in between.
Embarrassment turned to panic. I loved it all. Clearly, Ronan could carry a grudge.
Unnecessary alarm
Baby theft is an unlikely thing, but still a thing.1 This, I did not know before having one of my own.
There's a sensor installed in every exit from the labor and delivery unit. Get too close, and the RFID laminated into a baby's anklet triggers a floor-wide alarm. If bureaucratic madness had a sound, this would be it.
Where was our room? Right next to an exit door. Was the entire floor curious about when Ronan entered or exited our room? Not sure, but they had the answer nonetheless.
Final form
In the middle of our last overnight, a nurse delivered a final form for us to complete. She set it down, swiveled Ronan's bassinet toward the exit, and escorted him to the nursery.
The paperwork was for Ronan's birth certificate. I ticked through the straightforward requests, added my signature to the last page, and set the short stack aside for collection. Without a thought, I was asleep.
A floor-wide alarm announced Ronan's return. Once silenced, the nurse described his time away. I sat up, unsure I could make sense of the day. Then heat. Not physical, but inescapable. The source: Cait's stare. The message: Are you kidding me?
Ronan's paperwork sat in her lap. Her eyes didn't move from me. Why use a pen? Why do this in the middle of the night?
Cait found pages littered with blanks. Places where sleep took hold, and ink sprinted away from its intended place. Errors she could dismiss on their own.
What she could not overlook were the three places where I misspelled her last name.
There is no coming back from Caitlin "Brynes" Dawson.
Exit strategy
We expected to leave the hospital around 10 am on our last day. We were packed and ready to go by 7 am. It was 4 pm when I followed the orderly pushing Cait toward the exit.
Cait joined Ronan in our car's backseat. She sucked on her teeth, pulling her legs inside. The slightest movement, voluntary or involuntary, triggered bolts of pain.
We drove south into a winter's pale orange sunset. I've never driven with more care.
It was a silent ride. Parents exhausted. Cait's attention on Ronan. Mine on the road.
We avoided potholes, sharp turns, and sudden stops for 30 minutes. A final turn onto our road and there it was. Less than 100 feet from our driveway, the speed bump.
I stopped in the middle of the road. Cait and I looked at each other in the rearview mirror. Forward, she decided.
More teeth sucking.
1 In the U.S. over the past 60 years, 140 infants have been abducted from hospitals vs 115 million babies born. Accutech and its peers have a great "razor/razorblade" model.