It is I, the neonatology intern!
We've a baby without gonads in the NICU now. The infant seems perfectly happy, but the nurses all put on their best concerned looks when they're flipping through the chart. The ubiquitous ID stickers all read L----, Baby instead of L----, Boy or Girl or whatever the parents end up choosing for a name. This kid's the newest addition to my list of favorites, one of the calmest on the unit.
Work put me in a saddened state today, actually. One of the new babies has problems with bone malformation in both hands, both feet, and her skull, a sluggish brain, and a fractured femur, among other difficulties. This is one of the kids whose mother didn't drink during the pregnancy or test positive for cocaine/tobacco/THC/what have you. Another baby's mother died suddenly last night and the maternal grandparents promptly cut all of the other relatives off from the infant.
When I'm testing a good kid, the neonatal ward also makes me want to have my own baby, but only for a month or so. I don't suppose they rent them out. They'll stare up at me and doze off in my arms and I don't want to put them back in their cribs because they'd have to let go of my finger if I did that. They're always softer than I expect, too, and lighter. I like the dead weight of their heads, the shocking flexibility of their open-sutured skulls.
Work put me in a saddened state today, actually. One of the new babies has problems with bone malformation in both hands, both feet, and her skull, a sluggish brain, and a fractured femur, among other difficulties. This is one of the kids whose mother didn't drink during the pregnancy or test positive for cocaine/tobacco/THC/what have you. Another baby's mother died suddenly last night and the maternal grandparents promptly cut all of the other relatives off from the infant.
When I'm testing a good kid, the neonatal ward also makes me want to have my own baby, but only for a month or so. I don't suppose they rent them out. They'll stare up at me and doze off in my arms and I don't want to put them back in their cribs because they'd have to let go of my finger if I did that. They're always softer than I expect, too, and lighter. I like the dead weight of their heads, the shocking flexibility of their open-sutured skulls.