Dr. Allan Horowitz, published newspaper article, Richmond Hill Liberal, Copyright June 06, 1990
It is now the morning after the night before. The night before was spent at York Central Hospital’s obstetrics department. My wife was having our third child.
What was supposed to be a simple, quick, no-problem birth turned into a 14-hour affair. Everything went very well, just slow.
The baby was born on May 2, and I am writing this article on May 3. Why am I telling you all this? Because I have nothing else to write about today. I have no time to research or read letters or write an informative, educational column filled with big, scientific words.
I have to go to work, look after my patients, call my other two kids every half hour to make sure that Jennifer isn’t scratching her chicken pox and to make sure that Joshua isn’t telling her that she’s going to end up with big holes in her body if she does scratch them. I then have to shop, wash, cook (or order something), pick up Debbie’s pillow (she has a complaint about York Central’s pillows), buy some flowers, and run around doing all these “wife things” for the next few days.
I know I’m going to get blasted for that comment, but new fathers should be allowed to say things like that and get away with it.
VERY IGNORANT
I read four People magazines yesterday and two complete Sports Illustrated magazines. This might not sound like an accomplishment, but it is. I am very ignorant when it comes to knowing who is who in the world of important, famous people.
I am reading a People magazine that tells me that Cher is in love with a bagel salesman. Debbie informs me that they have been living together for years and are probably long broken up by now.
I then learned that the star of Moonlighting, Cybil Sheppard, is getting divorced from her chiropractor husband. I then heard from Debbie that they split up years ago, and not only that, but her show has been cancelled also.
I know that I am bored when I actually find it interesting to read that some high school senior in Bangor, Maine scored 68 points in his school’s final basketball game. Wow! I wish they provided me with this kid’s junior high school statistics as well. I then read all I wanted to know about stock car racing, and I then read the prediction that Calgary was going to repeat as this year’s Stanley Cup winner. So much for Sports Illustrated.
I ate two granola bars from the cafeteria, had three bottles of ginger ale from the kitchen and had six cookies (I hope those little black things were supposed to be there).
For the first half of the day, it was so busy that we were stuck in a storage room. All other rooms were full and they even had one poor lady in the kitchen. We got to know each other quite well, whenever I went for a cookie and a drink.
EIGHT MONITORS
The next room was the ”original C-Section” room as the doctor proudly called it. I was made to feel like somebody special, as it was the only room with three cans of apple juice on the floor by the door, a huge clock that always pointed to 12:10, eight fetal heart monitors and four beds.
I bet no other couple had eight fetal heart monitors!
GET SOME SLEEP
Once a real room was cleared out, we were escorted into it and then I had my own telephone, a closet, washroom and a real rocking chair so I could try to get some sleep.
Everything went well, the nurses and doctor did a good job, the mother was brave and the father was terrific.
If the baby was born on any other day except a Wednesday I would have written a real article, so one day I’ll have to thank Jordan for giving me the excuse I needed to loaf for one day.
Thanks Jordan.