(no subject)
I woke up hearing someone messing around with our stuff outside. Turned out to be the neighbor's cat, who wanted in out of the rain. But now I can't get back to sleep.
I'm tempted to give the doula program a piece of my mind. I sign up for two days a week. On those two days, I can't go further from home than the library (and even then I'm unlikely to get there within the 30 minute response time if they call - I basically have to be sitting at home ready to go for that to happen) and have to be ready to drop everything at any moment, pack Leif off to friends, and rush to the hospital. This means that my friend is also on call on these days.
I haven't been in since November. It's disheartening, especially since I'm the only person on the schedule those two days. I get no feedback, so I don't know if there's something I'm doing wrong that's causing me not to get called. I did get called once, but it was randomly on a day I wasn't actually on the schedule, and they found someone else before I could arrange care for Leif.
Looking at the tentative schedule for the next two weeks the coordinator just sent out, I don't think it's just me. Only four people (out of 50 or so on the mailing list) responded for her first request for availability information, and there are lots of slots open. I'm sure some will come out of the woodwork (like I did) now that she's basically sent the final reminder, but still, it looks like people are losing interest. Only 2 people other than me attended the last group meeting.
I have a friend who was in the program a few years back who eventually quit because she was never being called in.
I know the coordinator can't force the midwives and nurses to call doulas, and maybe there just truly isn't the demand. Not everyone wants a random stranger to come in and sit with them during labor.
Still, it seems like something needs to change if they want the program to work. The current coordinator is moving on to a new project (making the hospital into an official baby friendly hospital, meaning basically that they provide exceptional breastfeeding support), so perhaps the new coordinator will be able to push the program a bit more.
A funny LJ coincidence happened yesterday. In the morning, someone posted in ucdavis about seeing a cop staking out a local bank with a rifle, and mentioned seeing some people across the street taking about it and taking pictures. In the evening, I saw a post while reading friendsfriends from the person who had been taking the pictures. The really odd part - she's was just visiting Davis for the weekend, and our mutual friend lives on the other side of the country and has no connection to Davis. She was, however, with a local friend who is on the friends list of my former roommate. Small world.
Leif is in love with the Babar movie. It's cute, but I find I really don't like the colonialist, materialist message it has. Yes, the elephants are of course oh so much happier wearing clothing and living in a city than they were frolicking in the wild. And then there's the mommy-death, which, if I'd thought about it in advance, probably would have had me avoiding it entirely. The inconsistancies between the movie and the bonus episode on the DVD bug me, too. In the movie, he clearly becomes king as an adult. In the bonus episode, he's a child king. Ah well, continuity is for wimps.
I should try to get more sleep. 5 hours really isn't enough.
I'm tempted to give the doula program a piece of my mind. I sign up for two days a week. On those two days, I can't go further from home than the library (and even then I'm unlikely to get there within the 30 minute response time if they call - I basically have to be sitting at home ready to go for that to happen) and have to be ready to drop everything at any moment, pack Leif off to friends, and rush to the hospital. This means that my friend is also on call on these days.
I haven't been in since November. It's disheartening, especially since I'm the only person on the schedule those two days. I get no feedback, so I don't know if there's something I'm doing wrong that's causing me not to get called. I did get called once, but it was randomly on a day I wasn't actually on the schedule, and they found someone else before I could arrange care for Leif.
Looking at the tentative schedule for the next two weeks the coordinator just sent out, I don't think it's just me. Only four people (out of 50 or so on the mailing list) responded for her first request for availability information, and there are lots of slots open. I'm sure some will come out of the woodwork (like I did) now that she's basically sent the final reminder, but still, it looks like people are losing interest. Only 2 people other than me attended the last group meeting.
I have a friend who was in the program a few years back who eventually quit because she was never being called in.
I know the coordinator can't force the midwives and nurses to call doulas, and maybe there just truly isn't the demand. Not everyone wants a random stranger to come in and sit with them during labor.
Still, it seems like something needs to change if they want the program to work. The current coordinator is moving on to a new project (making the hospital into an official baby friendly hospital, meaning basically that they provide exceptional breastfeeding support), so perhaps the new coordinator will be able to push the program a bit more.
A funny LJ coincidence happened yesterday. In the morning, someone posted in ucdavis about seeing a cop staking out a local bank with a rifle, and mentioned seeing some people across the street taking about it and taking pictures. In the evening, I saw a post while reading friendsfriends from the person who had been taking the pictures. The really odd part - she's was just visiting Davis for the weekend, and our mutual friend lives on the other side of the country and has no connection to Davis. She was, however, with a local friend who is on the friends list of my former roommate. Small world.
Leif is in love with the Babar movie. It's cute, but I find I really don't like the colonialist, materialist message it has. Yes, the elephants are of course oh so much happier wearing clothing and living in a city than they were frolicking in the wild. And then there's the mommy-death, which, if I'd thought about it in advance, probably would have had me avoiding it entirely. The inconsistancies between the movie and the bonus episode on the DVD bug me, too. In the movie, he clearly becomes king as an adult. In the bonus episode, he's a child king. Ah well, continuity is for wimps.
I should try to get more sleep. 5 hours really isn't enough.