Fudge What You Think!

Before leaving the NICU Unit, everyone is required to take a Discharge Class educating new parents on a variety of topics. We weren't terribly thrilled about taking a two hour class and decided to get it out of the way on Wednesday morning.

We arrive at the classroom about 10 minutes early and were chatting with Jeannie, a nurse that has been at Loma Linda for 30+ years. She asks us a few questions about the boys before we are joined by two other couples to making up the following micro-community:

• Brudam: A smartly dressed (MAYBE accidentally coordinated in matching Ralph Lauren sweaters) with paper and pen ready to take copious notes


• Couple #2: A young Hispanic girl and her husband with a sweet tattoo across his hairline that said “F@ck What You Think”


• Couple #3: A May-December romance of a 5o-ish year old man and a late 20s girl who could barely keep her eyes open. As the class progressed, it was clear it was a drug-related scenario going on.

Class starts off with a bang when Jeannie asks May-December couple the name of their baby and what they had. The father chimes in and says, "Lawrencia is a girl, though I was really hoping for a boy. I am still trying to get over that she’s not a boy. I really wanted a boy………………..” Sir, I think the name alone suggests your desire to have a boy. We move along nicely through uplifting topics such as "Shaken Baby Syndrome" and "How to select a good babysitter" (Did your neighbor recently kick down their front door after an argument with their significant other? They're better suited to go to the grocery store for you than to watch your baby.)

We get to the developmental milestones page that talks about what babies should be doing a 3 months, 6 months, etc. and the drug momma, who had been nodding off for 30 minutes now, somehow musters up a moment of clarity and decides to weigh in on the topic saying, “My other baby was out of diapers AND talking by 6 months…this guide is BULLSH!T!” Jeannie politely responded with, "Wow, your baby is quite advanced!" and most everyone in the room didn't even pick up on a hint of sarcasm!

Well, lo and behold, the best was yet to come. After covering awkward topics of ways to identify drug babies and the dangers of smoking around your babies we managed to silence the room when we said we were going to circumcise the boys. The tattoo coupled gasped in horror and whispered to each other and drug momma couldn’t even give us eye contact (though, to be fair, she was having a hard time focusing on anything).

Really????? THIS IS WHAT SILENCED THE ROOM????? Whatever. We covered the page on how to handle post-circumsicion care while the other two couples silently judged us. I wanted to tell Lawrencia's Dad and say, "Cram it, sir - we've got twice as many boys as you do!!!"

We wrapped up class and Lawrencia's parents went to go smoke and the other couple went off to see the lastest addition to their 5 other children. They ended up being a rather sweet couple despite his rather jarring tattoo. As we headed off to see the boys, Bruce, always a probleem fixer, suggested the man grow out his bangs as it would frame his face nicely and make for a better first impression.