We are gonna go with someone else

Normally when you are pregnant you go through a process of interviewing doctors to decide who will be your new baby's pediatrician. It's really important to find someone you feel comfortable with and trust absolutely. You will be spending a lot of time with this person over the next several years. You will be calling frequently with the "Is this normal?" question, sometimes at 3am. So.

Our first pediatrician interview was scheduled for Sept. 6. Starting a little late, but we still had a couple of weeks. Heh.

Baby decided to make her entrance three weeks early, though. When asked, in the hospital, who her pediatrician would be, we had no other name to give than Doctor No. 1 of the aforementioned Sept. 6 appointment.

He came to the hospital.

He is 300 years old. Seriously. His SUIT may have been older than I am. It was lime green sofa-looking material, kind of a nubbly silk I can't name, and had a flowered and very wide tie to match. He wears black horn rimmed glasses with a black elastic band to hold them on around the back of his head.

I was just a little alarmed.

But we wouldn't have time to interview anyone during her first week home and he asked to see her again on the day before our original appointment, so we just decided to keep that appointment.

The day arrived and we found the office. Three swag lamps with 20-watt lightbulbs lit the waiting area, which was furnished with mismatched 60's era chrome and naugahyde settees and some random old chairs. It was dark. Hand-scrawled signs were tacked up here and there with warnings about payments and rogue toddlers. We looked at each other wide-eyed.

Once we got shown back to the exam room, we noticed the avocado green paint job and yellowed linoleum tiles on the floor. The exam table was made of darkly stained scarred and pitted wood. The padded naugahyde surface had several blemishes which had been repaired with tape. A nurse came in and took the baby somewhere to weigh her and brought her back. She then put her down on the exam table with her head butting up against the wall and fetched a yardstick down off the nail next to the door where it was hanging. She butted the yardstick up against the wall and stretched baby's foot out to measure her.

In came the doctor. He was really very nice. Made the requisite "What a beautiful baby" comments, looked her over.

He said he was concerned that she hadn't gained much weight since she got out of the hospital. (Due to the calories expended getting born and the saved up poop and things, babies actually lose some weight after they're born and before they start plumping back up again.) He was thinking that she hadn't started plumping back up quite enough. So he told us to give her some cereal so she'd gain weight faster.

Yes, even though doctors haven't advocated giving a one-week old infant cereal since probably the late '50s or early '60s, he generously gave us a small envelope with a sample of Gerber rice cereal. And advised us that she wouldn't know how to swallow it, but to keep it up and eventually she'd catch on.

So yeah, we're going to go with someone else.

PS - picture taken with Sydney's phone. Sorry it's so hazy.