I helped one of the newer residents with groceries up to their rooms, as one of them is disabled and needs grocery carts to get the heavy bags up to her apt.  Someone has taken the five carts we had for resident use (three were ours, that former management had allowed us, and two were ones that somehow escaped the nazi-ish electronic monitors that the grocery had put on them to stop the carts from leaving the lot.)  Somehow, they’ve all come up missing.  We figure residents are keeping them in their apartments, disregarding that others may need them.  I got chastised this morning for making an announcement over the intercom for people to bring the carts back down. They emphasized that I’m only allowed to use the intercom for emergencies.  <sigh>

Apparently, the ogre of a manager at the grocery store has still been complaining about us using the carts!  Unfreakingbuhlievable!  The folks that are disabled cannot lift those heavy bags for the trips to their apartments.  They can barely get them across the street. Same with the elderly who can easily drop their groceries while trying to get them home.  It’s freaking ridiculous.  Like I said before, I wonder how much this grocery store (a national chain) paid to have this stupid electronic system put in?  And for what?? Five stinking carts?!

Anyway, while I was helping the residents take the groceries up, one, a nursing student, mentioned that she had spoken to a woman who went into labor and was put on Pitocin.  She had screamed from the pain for hours…

…again, memories come flooding back, as I remembered my own screaming from Pitocin.  I was shocked to find out that I wasn’t the only one. I thought that I was, well, just a wimp…apparently not.

Here’s a story on possible brain damage caused by it.  If you look at the comments, there is one by a clever midwife who suggested the laboring mother get on all fours to aid contractions..

…a lightbulb went on…I was told many years ago that I had a tipped uterus (backwards).  Now I wonder if I had been on all fours, this would have allowed my uterus to progress normally through labor?   The thing that gets me is that doctors know that a woman lying on her back during labor is not beneficial for contractions and can be dangerous as it depresses the major vein.  I was on my back during all three labors.

…and I can echo the horrible pain associated with Pitocin.  And no anesthetic.  I was so out of my mind with pain that I kept saying “push, push, push” while the nurse tried in vain to get right up to my ear and said to stop pushing.  I couldn’t even respond to her or anything–a somewhat catatonic state.  And I’ll always wonder what that did to my daughter–whether it’s played a role in her epilepsy.