Vegan Birth/Baby Story (how my daughter was born) [Vegan Parenting]
17 March 2017 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
Oh with the video like this you really
got a question how you use YouTube how you reach out to your audience to what extent YouTube is supposed to be a diary to what extent it's supposed to be a documentary to what extent it's supposed to be cinema verite and to what extent it is supposed to be what we call heightened life aka drama theater or artifice so I put some thought into into this video and I decided the best way to do it is with absolutely no thought at all with no script with no bullet points I'm gonna leave out whatever I'm gonna leave out make this as spontaneous as possible this is the story of how my daughter was born and yes my daughter was vegan from conception vegan from birth have you want to put it me and my wife now my ex-wife we're vegan all along let's start this thing at the end and then go back to the beginning and offer some impressionist stick observations along the way let's do this real latter-day postmodern style at the end of the process I will always remember standing in front of a professional government bureaucrat in the French hospital system and trying to get them to type my daughter's name correctly on the legal form that would generate her passport her birth certificate all of these crucial pieces of ID and my wife and I both had enough experience up to that point without French bureaucracy works to be terrified because the woman we were talking to was incompetent she had only one job the one job was to type out the name of a newly born baby correctly this wasn't like an office that handled ten different things I thought oh no no no no this was a specialized office that only had one function and this is a woman sitting behind the desk only had one job and unlike my own name my daughter's name is not hard to spell minimum four times my wife and I are staying there and it's it's needless to say we have not had a lot of sleep I don't even mean the last 48 hours we have a lot of sleep in like a week okay and we're standing there trying to remain friendly with this terrifyingly incompetent bureaucrat because we know if this woman makes a mistake on this form now it will be months of paperwork to try to change it if there's a spelling error in my daughter's name it's one of those things where like you know I'm not supposed to be looking at her screen but like the first time she's you know sitting there like an airhead and chattering away and smiling and it's like you reach over and look at this tree no no no that's that's not that's not my daughter's name you got it wrong like we're standing here my wife speaks French completely fluently I speak enough to get by that the name is written on paper it's in front of her she's got the keyboard how is it possible for someone would that's their only job that's their only responsibility to be so so terrifyingly incompetent I'm mentioning that memory first because our whole experience with pregnancy and childbirth likewise at every stage included encounters both in Canada and in France with terrifyingly incompetent medical professionals bureaucrats etc and you know like it would be a bit melodramatic to say my life is in their hands or my daughter's life is in their hands but sometimes it feels that way back when we were in Canada I remember there was one woman and she simply operated the ultrasound equipment and she was so uncomfortable their only job is to ultrasound pregnant women like that's a specialized office you know she doesn't do broken legs or anything else and she's totally uncomfortable with the female body and pregnancy in this stuff right this is not the job how did you end up in this job yeah what did did you show up at the wrong auditions you know for this part is bizarre and you know like how much am I supposed to reassure this woman like she could be reassuring us and I remember at one point you one of the two women who like this was just incredibly uncomfortable you'd see what the body language and that was just with dealing with pregnant woman baby she just said I I don't do this procedure if the husband is in the room so if you want to watch or you want to be here to hold your wife's hand just you know you have to leave that's not allowed and I said to her wasn't aggressive was not Stella said okay I understand um give me the name and phone number of another office where we can do this instead like we're not gonna do this here I'm not gonna leave the room well my wife goes through this you know possibly my wife is gonna get bad news you know if you hear your baby as a health problem is something wrong no you want to be there but I said okay fine where do you reschedule and I said you know well either we'll reschedule with another technician she's not a doctor she's a technically she's a technic you know not a title well reschedule with another medical professional either at this office is that fine no problem and she caved and she caved in the most pathetic way like you'd think it was her first day on the job you think this was a totally new concept not something she does multiple times per day seven days a week you know she looked down at the ground and she slumped her shoulders and she just walked in the office like okay then and let me even though it's a subtle moment in dealing with medical professionals you have to ask yourself so on the one hand how many men have had to sit in the hallway while their wife got tragic bad news about a pregnancy or something else upsetting happens during the during the ova sound and the other hand how many men have just stood up as much as I did and said no that's unacceptable we'll reschedule um how many times has this script played out with the two and only two possibilities and would it be too much to expect somebody does this for a living someone who's a specialized professional the same way like okay your only job is typing out a newborn baby's name your only job is basically being unobtrusive and inoffensive while you operate this this machine you know ultrasound on a pregnant woman couldn't we replace those people with someone who is good the job or someone who likes the job or someone who was at least not this miserable and self-pitying and sulking and inept like Wow so look I'm not gonna blame you the whole video could just be a catalog of terrible experiences medical professionals I am vegan my ex-wife is vegan the baby as far as I know is is vegan obviously at some point she gets to make up online but that but in the first 10 months yo she's not making the rules it is true that a big part of the drama and the struggle after my daughter was born was just getting vegan food for my wife in the hospital and she was there for several days you know wasn't there too quick in and out and I did make the trip from the hospital to the downtown core of the city we were in and back again the hospital's way out of the outskirts and you know look I mean disclaimer I'm about 6 foot 3 when I wake up in the morning I'm about 6 foot 2 when I go to bed at night I normally say I'm 6 foot 2 and a half someone wants an accurate size but I do I do very but I'm not I'm not that big a guy in Europe I mean here in China even I'm not that big a guy I remember I was with my girlfriend at the airport after midnight when they had the tough security staff on um you know the midnight crew at the airport and I just pointed out to I said look pay attention cuz this is like the only time in China you're gonna see a bunch of guys standing around her about the same size I am they had all guys who were over 6 foot tall on security as we were exiting the airport at about midnight that is rare here in China I do stand out as a big but I'm not I'm not that big a guy but I remember whenever I would go from the hospital downtown to buy hummus and rice and vegetables you know prepared food couldn't cook in the hospital but I would buy a whole mishmash a lot of it being you know Mediterranean and you know Middle Eastern food and what have you you know buy this stuff and take it back at the hospital because I've been dealing with so much aggression so many insults somebody so many denigrating statements from the doctors and nurses and was at the hospital it was so much sorrow and misery and negativity you know when I was walking down the streets just to buy that food I was radiating you're very sincere feeling and there were I mean some of those streets there were pimps there were pushers there were drug dealers there were some prostitutes in the streets there were some you know there were also just some some homeless people but identifiably there were some some criminals and those largely cobblestone streets actually and I was just radiating I wish you was and again I'm not that big a guy I'm not that big a guy and it was I was really thinking if one of these people tries to bug me or tries to start something might be a nice break from the hospital to spend the night in the police station or something oh and you know all those people they got out of my way you know people actually slunk back from me in fear I was walking down the road I was just carrying was carrying like a you know plastic bag with some falafels in it or whatever whatever the vegan options were I put together that night but look already I mean I'm laughing about it now smiling about it now four years later happy birthday zan zan it should have been the happiest time in my life and entirely because of the conduct of medical professionals it was the most miserable the saddest I mean really tragically awful day of my life or several days of my life it was just terrible and oh man you know I've mentioned this to friends of mine who are black or who are non-white in different contexts I'm sorry I'm not look have a ton of black friends here I come from Canada you know in some parts of Canada like you know you're in Victoria you see maybe one black person a month like there are just not that many black people or it's Canada but I was grew up in Toronto I had one black friend the missus I don't have that many but still today with friends and people and on the internet who are who are black I mentioned them you know during that time living in the South of France is the only time my life when people perceive me as and treated me as non-white they didn't necessarily they didn't know what I was I think they put me in the category of miscellaneous North African and there are some North Africans who are very fair-skinned I met them when I was there in France you know the Berbers and so on most famous it but there you know there are a lot of ways people can be North African and not look too far off my appearance but in the conversations with the doctors many of whom were themselves non-white the main the main doctor we dealt with was of Arab ancestry I never asked where she was from but many many of the medical staff the doctors and nurses were themselves non-white and nevertheless racist and racist against me and my wife as non-white people I wish I was making this up but we were absolutely categorized as being poverty-stricken miscellaneous North Africans or possibly middle-eastern maybe someone thought were from the Middle East or something but I think they all assumed who were from from North Africa and they would say things no again some of this is unspoken communication but a lot of it was explicitly articulated these are conversations you have with the doctors and nurses you just get stuff like you know you ask a totally respectable question like okay yeah so what is your procedure with the umbilical cord like do you let the umbilical cord exhaust itself dry up and then cut it would you cut immediately you're asking procedural questions that actually everyone should ask and the doctor turning to you with sneering contempt and saying well how do they do it in your country then if if you think Medicare so go to your country why don't you why don't you do it like that there and I reply straight up I'm from Canada I was born in Ontario Canada like what direction do you want to take this conversation in and you know once they similarly insulted my wife this way and saying like yes well I been to the doctor speaking well I have a degree in medicine what kind of education do you have from your country then and my my wife had to answer I have a PhD from Cambridge they were really like I'm laughing about it now four years later four years later to the day but let me tell you it was no laughing matter time even though you know after the doctors left she and I did joke about a bit me and my my ex-wife but Wow the level of hostility and again fundamentally the level of incompetence because like this is your one job all these doctors and nurses were specialized we were in a specialized wing of the hospital that is just for new births and even then I have to add we were in a specialized wing that is for normal births for babies with no health problems right right and this was just misery unbelieva misery I know I've mentioned somewhere in a YouTube video before at one point I actually did have to prevent a nurse from punching my wife or she got so out of control emotion I had to physically you know I didn't touch her but I had to move her out the door I did put my body in between the two of them and closed the door again so she was still screaming and yeah yeah and she she banged the door and this kind of stuff it was a it was a you know solid metal door or a fireproof door I guess the door made a big bang when she punched it or kicked it whatever she did um it was that raw it was that intense and very fundamentally apart from immaturity apart from all the other things complain about this is a form of incompetence you have to understand that because if that's your only job is to cope with newborn babies and the questions from parents at this time some of them simple straightforward questions like at one point they had to withdraw blood and like the form just said like five now I later figured out why this was was printed out from a computer and said look what is the unit like five milliliters of blood like what how much blood are you taking and that was actually the time when the nurse so angry she choice I had to physically prevent her from punching my wife and my wife my wife is bedridden by the way but wife is not standing up she's laid out you talk about punching a woman in a in a stretcher in in a hospital bed you know that time the question was actually said look you know before I can consents cuz you only want me to sign this yeah there's no unit how much blood he taking and you know what I'm certain it is now I'm certain because printed out from a computer and the computer couldn't make the Greek symbol it must have been microliters you know is supposed to have a special symbol after the five but sometimes when a computer can't do so that it just leaves it blank and none of them case the question team of nurses in the room and now the new what unit is this much closer it's not five liters people how much they couldn't and think they couldn't answer the question and again they couldn't even keep calm they couldn't even in a reasonable you know and helpful way deal with and respond to a question like that from a parent whose concern so that immense a the whole situation from day one should have been the happiest day of my life and instead it was the most harrowing and the most miserable not due to any health problem my daughter had my daughter was a hundred and ten percent healthy the pregnancy and the birth they were they were better than a hundred percent perfect I'll come back to that it was it was just the attitudes of the medical professionals of all including their attitudes in their hatred for us as vegans and we did get again this is not just interpreting body language or the look in somebody's eye you know they spelled it out for us and they asked us crazy questions about veganism they showed just how much contempt they had for us because we're that we were vegan and that they assumed we would be you know anti vaccine they assumed you were members of a cult they asked us directly about that if we were called member because we were vegan it was really really awful so purely for that reason not due to any conduct on my daughter's part not to Denny Connor to my ex-wife's part they were both impeccable not do they because like on my part surely due to the attitudes and medical professionals it was a harrowing and traumatizing experience and it need the Bennett's shouldn't have been but keeping it all the way real I just mentioned we were in a special wing it was just healthy babies it was just new births and I was always going out to buy food and come back one time I went and got food I came back and I just took a different staircase to get up to the room that oh but it's a shorter trip if I if I come up this way and I went through the special wing that is for babies born with a heart defect Wow just walking down that hallway just seeing the parents you know leaning against the wall standing in the hallway standing outside the doors I didn't you know I wasn't going to anyone's room I was just walking down the hallway the sense of ambient tragedy hanging in the air was on another level I said to my said that my wife when I got in look you know if you're ever feeling that we have it hard here in this wing of the hospital you're feeling sorry for yourself because we do it was the heart it was a horrible experience okay you can go through two pairs of double doors that way and go into that wing and those are the babies that were not born healthy and you can take a look at the expressions on the faces of the parents in there and and you can see what it's like for the people in this hospital who really have it hard but again keeping it all the way real as I'm want to do look guys this is also why I think we had doctors and nurses who were so incompetent I think the doctors and nurses who were really talented and really reliable were all being assigned to more high pressure wing as the hospital even was within the maternity ward you know so probably the best nurses and the best doctors we're dealing with the babies who have health problems or in those other departments or they're dealing with heart surgery or cancer surgery or you but there was so much specialization was a big famous hospital that I think we were getting the worst of the worst we're getting the least competent even within you know the doctors and nurses dealing with maternity boo-boos shocking unbelievable but that I just mentioned that also happens a lot in the military even of friends of mine but also just family members who have experiences know working in the military they've often said to me you know you get the situation where you know the really sharp people are are reassigned to two crucial departments and then when you're in a department that there's some more slack in the rope so to speak where things are not so urgent where things are not life threatening then you just seem to be shocked all the time you seem to be amazed at the levels of incompetence that you're dealing with so I think some of that was going on in that hospital now terrorism my own experience you know we did go through parent education in Canada we went to will be the word but in orientation meetings or special education meetings where medical professional talks you through what's gonna happen with the birth and what can go wrong and how to prepare yourself and they show you video of birth itself and of newborn babies and of what to expect and explain to you how the hospitals are organized so in Canada before we went to France for the birth I did actually have that background that education so you know as in most movies and TV shows I was expecting newborn baby to be this kind of screaming ugly covered with mucus covered with blood you know spectacle that you've seen in movies and that indeed that's what I saw even in these educational documentaries that I saw with with an educator breaking all these things down and when they actually handed my daughter to me on the contrary there was no blood on her there was no mucus on her she wasn't screaming she was completely peacefully sleeping she looked beautiful she didn't look like a newborn baby she looked like a 1 month old baby everything was completely fully for and developed every eyelash was perfect you know what's the eyebrows are perfect mm-hmm she wasn't upset she didn't seem to be surprised to be born she didn't look beautiful she looked different just a couple days later into the you know into her life but um you know I do remember what she looked like and they handed me this baby and time/thought this looks like a fake baby if I take a photograph myself holding this baby people will think it's at least a week old this does not look like the baby one moment after it was born now there are reasons for that including the fact that a lot of what you see the images of babies are born earlier in their term and my daughter went all the way through she was she had a full 100% development in the womb so she is in effect a little bit older than what a lot of other new babies look like and some of those things you see in a newborn baby the the mucus and so on depending on on how late into the final trimester you give birth I'm told that those things vary so again I got I did get some education in this but still it was striking and bizarre and Deena wanted this so I'm again I'm handed this baby and this should be a moment of joy or happiness or I should at least have my wife there next to me what have you but for purely bureaucratic reasons they put me in like a closet with this newborn baby it was this tiny windowless room with the door they put me there with the baby and then they separately relocated my wife to a room where she would wait there'll be the room she slept in and what have you to to her main room and I had to wait in this closet with this newborn baby now you know I think anytime this baby is gonna wake up and want to breastfeed or what-have-you this is a stressful situation and hours are going by and finally so there are two nurses working this special ward this special area there's no about there's nobody else there's no other patient there no other men there nope there's nobody else it's me with a baby in this closet and I'm waiting there for no legitimate reason right like I think I mean if they want to put me there for five minutes I don't know why and then my wife goes the other I have no idea why I'm guessing it's because legally there's a question of who actually has custody of the baby during those few minutes there's like I have no idea why and ultimately after a couple of hours ago I like this with me being in the you know low-key terrifying situation also you know I don't speak French that well of being assigned to this bizarre room and this Ward and not knowing why I'm not in the same room with my with my wife now my ex-wife you know finally I just have to come in I'm holding the baby and have to come out and have to stand in the hall in front of the office where these two nurses are and they just keep saying no just wait in the room swayed in the room and they say to me legally you can't stand there you have to go into the cubicle with me like it's a crime for you to stand in the hallway and I said to them in French call the police I said I understand your situation I can't wait in this room with my baby any longer and with nothing else by the way like you're just in a [ __ ] concrete cell with the baby it's not like I have a milk bottle or anything else either said if you have to call the police good call the police because I can't wait anymore and then obviously one nurse was more senior than the other and the more senior nurse said this is all in French of course she said dismissively in contemptuously so you just have to wait into that room until you know your wife has been moved into into her room as milk in her and the more junior nurse said that happened hours ago you had that moment where there are people in authority there are people wearing uniforms and they were just threatening to call the cops on me and and put me in jail really seriously they were that was what they were saying and they suddenly have a moment of recognition that they're in the wrong and that I've done nothing wrong and are they going to admit that or they're gonna apologize to me or what and this is France nobody nobody an authority they miss that they're wrong nobody so it's a terrifying thing actually about dealing with French government then there was a final stage where they wanted me to go out into a main hallway down another hallway turn left and go through an unmarked door there was a door with no sign and no doorknob there was a completely unmarked door in a hallway full of confusing doors because that was their protocol to prevent people from stealing the baby and they said okay so you leave the baby here and then you follow these complex instructions you go through the door and if you ask which door they say there's no sign there's no number it's just one of the doors you'll you'll figure it out and again I haven't slept in 48 hours well you know it's normal when you have a newborn baby you go for a long period of time I'm sorry it's the man unless you're sleeping while your wife's awake but I was awake the whole time went through the whole process with my ex-wife and you know so I haven't slept in very long time I just said to them no I'm not gonna figure it out I said look like we can I can go through another door like I'm not gonna do this like you know which was completely honest and completely true and again my ability to speak French is what it is and again so the senior nurse starts threatening to call the cops or something but I'm just admitting to you you guys have a complex system where for some reason you want me to be separated from my baby and then go through this other door and that's that's not gonna work right now you know and finally the junior nurse who was obviously the smarter of the two she just admitted that it's a problem like yeah like a lot of parents get lost looking from that door like it actually is a problem this it's a hidden door it's intentionally hard to find that's why they call it hidden and so the younger nurse just silently she walked out the door she said follow me she walked in the hallway and then she opened the secret door for me she pointed to the correct door so I got mine and I was glad I was completely right you know it would have been a disaster otherwise so then I went through that door and then the same nurse walked down and got my baby and brought it to me at the secret door so you know just now recently I've had a death in the family my father is now deceased and I was talking to my mom a little bit and you know philosophizing a bit with her using my robust background and Buddhist philosophy and European philosophy to say something profound and meaningful in the situation I'm pretty good at I can improvise philosophy lessons without without too much trouble and you know one of things I said to my mom was look you know you're going through this situation where the absurdity you have to deal with every day is the contrast between the profound and personal nature of why you were at the hospital and the antiseptic authoritarian bureaucratic dehumanizing nature of what the hospital is itself a lot of people if they had to choose between dying on a battlefield and dying on a hospital would rather die in a battlefield we rather die in any situation more meaningful or more poetic than being in a hospital it's just one is just not very well suited to the other you know hospitals not a good place to be born it's not a good place to die Hey it's it's lacking it's lacking the very soul that's such a place ought to have to be the place where you you first meet your own son there you first meet your own daughter you first hold a baby in your arms or where you say goodbye to your father or your grandfather as they're going through their last minute but no I mean for better and for worse that is the format you know that is the institution that our culture is created where people deal with all of these you know terrible and terrifying transitions of the beginning and ending of life and that in short is my story of how my daughter was born
got a question how you use YouTube how you reach out to your audience to what extent YouTube is supposed to be a diary to what extent it's supposed to be a documentary to what extent it's supposed to be cinema verite and to what extent it is supposed to be what we call heightened life aka drama theater or artifice so I put some thought into into this video and I decided the best way to do it is with absolutely no thought at all with no script with no bullet points I'm gonna leave out whatever I'm gonna leave out make this as spontaneous as possible this is the story of how my daughter was born and yes my daughter was vegan from conception vegan from birth have you want to put it me and my wife now my ex-wife we're vegan all along let's start this thing at the end and then go back to the beginning and offer some impressionist stick observations along the way let's do this real latter-day postmodern style at the end of the process I will always remember standing in front of a professional government bureaucrat in the French hospital system and trying to get them to type my daughter's name correctly on the legal form that would generate her passport her birth certificate all of these crucial pieces of ID and my wife and I both had enough experience up to that point without French bureaucracy works to be terrified because the woman we were talking to was incompetent she had only one job the one job was to type out the name of a newly born baby correctly this wasn't like an office that handled ten different things I thought oh no no no no this was a specialized office that only had one function and this is a woman sitting behind the desk only had one job and unlike my own name my daughter's name is not hard to spell minimum four times my wife and I are staying there and it's it's needless to say we have not had a lot of sleep I don't even mean the last 48 hours we have a lot of sleep in like a week okay and we're standing there trying to remain friendly with this terrifyingly incompetent bureaucrat because we know if this woman makes a mistake on this form now it will be months of paperwork to try to change it if there's a spelling error in my daughter's name it's one of those things where like you know I'm not supposed to be looking at her screen but like the first time she's you know sitting there like an airhead and chattering away and smiling and it's like you reach over and look at this tree no no no that's that's not that's not my daughter's name you got it wrong like we're standing here my wife speaks French completely fluently I speak enough to get by that the name is written on paper it's in front of her she's got the keyboard how is it possible for someone would that's their only job that's their only responsibility to be so so terrifyingly incompetent I'm mentioning that memory first because our whole experience with pregnancy and childbirth likewise at every stage included encounters both in Canada and in France with terrifyingly incompetent medical professionals bureaucrats etc and you know like it would be a bit melodramatic to say my life is in their hands or my daughter's life is in their hands but sometimes it feels that way back when we were in Canada I remember there was one woman and she simply operated the ultrasound equipment and she was so uncomfortable their only job is to ultrasound pregnant women like that's a specialized office you know she doesn't do broken legs or anything else and she's totally uncomfortable with the female body and pregnancy in this stuff right this is not the job how did you end up in this job yeah what did did you show up at the wrong auditions you know for this part is bizarre and you know like how much am I supposed to reassure this woman like she could be reassuring us and I remember at one point you one of the two women who like this was just incredibly uncomfortable you'd see what the body language and that was just with dealing with pregnant woman baby she just said I I don't do this procedure if the husband is in the room so if you want to watch or you want to be here to hold your wife's hand just you know you have to leave that's not allowed and I said to her wasn't aggressive was not Stella said okay I understand um give me the name and phone number of another office where we can do this instead like we're not gonna do this here I'm not gonna leave the room well my wife goes through this you know possibly my wife is gonna get bad news you know if you hear your baby as a health problem is something wrong no you want to be there but I said okay fine where do you reschedule and I said you know well either we'll reschedule with another technician she's not a doctor she's a technically she's a technic you know not a title well reschedule with another medical professional either at this office is that fine no problem and she caved and she caved in the most pathetic way like you'd think it was her first day on the job you think this was a totally new concept not something she does multiple times per day seven days a week you know she looked down at the ground and she slumped her shoulders and she just walked in the office like okay then and let me even though it's a subtle moment in dealing with medical professionals you have to ask yourself so on the one hand how many men have had to sit in the hallway while their wife got tragic bad news about a pregnancy or something else upsetting happens during the during the ova sound and the other hand how many men have just stood up as much as I did and said no that's unacceptable we'll reschedule um how many times has this script played out with the two and only two possibilities and would it be too much to expect somebody does this for a living someone who's a specialized professional the same way like okay your only job is typing out a newborn baby's name your only job is basically being unobtrusive and inoffensive while you operate this this machine you know ultrasound on a pregnant woman couldn't we replace those people with someone who is good the job or someone who likes the job or someone who was at least not this miserable and self-pitying and sulking and inept like Wow so look I'm not gonna blame you the whole video could just be a catalog of terrible experiences medical professionals I am vegan my ex-wife is vegan the baby as far as I know is is vegan obviously at some point she gets to make up online but that but in the first 10 months yo she's not making the rules it is true that a big part of the drama and the struggle after my daughter was born was just getting vegan food for my wife in the hospital and she was there for several days you know wasn't there too quick in and out and I did make the trip from the hospital to the downtown core of the city we were in and back again the hospital's way out of the outskirts and you know look I mean disclaimer I'm about 6 foot 3 when I wake up in the morning I'm about 6 foot 2 when I go to bed at night I normally say I'm 6 foot 2 and a half someone wants an accurate size but I do I do very but I'm not I'm not that big a guy in Europe I mean here in China even I'm not that big a guy I remember I was with my girlfriend at the airport after midnight when they had the tough security staff on um you know the midnight crew at the airport and I just pointed out to I said look pay attention cuz this is like the only time in China you're gonna see a bunch of guys standing around her about the same size I am they had all guys who were over 6 foot tall on security as we were exiting the airport at about midnight that is rare here in China I do stand out as a big but I'm not I'm not that big a guy but I remember whenever I would go from the hospital downtown to buy hummus and rice and vegetables you know prepared food couldn't cook in the hospital but I would buy a whole mishmash a lot of it being you know Mediterranean and you know Middle Eastern food and what have you you know buy this stuff and take it back at the hospital because I've been dealing with so much aggression so many insults somebody so many denigrating statements from the doctors and nurses and was at the hospital it was so much sorrow and misery and negativity you know when I was walking down the streets just to buy that food I was radiating you're very sincere feeling and there were I mean some of those streets there were pimps there were pushers there were drug dealers there were some prostitutes in the streets there were some you know there were also just some some homeless people but identifiably there were some some criminals and those largely cobblestone streets actually and I was just radiating I wish you was and again I'm not that big a guy I'm not that big a guy and it was I was really thinking if one of these people tries to bug me or tries to start something might be a nice break from the hospital to spend the night in the police station or something oh and you know all those people they got out of my way you know people actually slunk back from me in fear I was walking down the road I was just carrying was carrying like a you know plastic bag with some falafels in it or whatever whatever the vegan options were I put together that night but look already I mean I'm laughing about it now smiling about it now four years later happy birthday zan zan it should have been the happiest time in my life and entirely because of the conduct of medical professionals it was the most miserable the saddest I mean really tragically awful day of my life or several days of my life it was just terrible and oh man you know I've mentioned this to friends of mine who are black or who are non-white in different contexts I'm sorry I'm not look have a ton of black friends here I come from Canada you know in some parts of Canada like you know you're in Victoria you see maybe one black person a month like there are just not that many black people or it's Canada but I was grew up in Toronto I had one black friend the missus I don't have that many but still today with friends and people and on the internet who are who are black I mentioned them you know during that time living in the South of France is the only time my life when people perceive me as and treated me as non-white they didn't necessarily they didn't know what I was I think they put me in the category of miscellaneous North African and there are some North Africans who are very fair-skinned I met them when I was there in France you know the Berbers and so on most famous it but there you know there are a lot of ways people can be North African and not look too far off my appearance but in the conversations with the doctors many of whom were themselves non-white the main the main doctor we dealt with was of Arab ancestry I never asked where she was from but many many of the medical staff the doctors and nurses were themselves non-white and nevertheless racist and racist against me and my wife as non-white people I wish I was making this up but we were absolutely categorized as being poverty-stricken miscellaneous North Africans or possibly middle-eastern maybe someone thought were from the Middle East or something but I think they all assumed who were from from North Africa and they would say things no again some of this is unspoken communication but a lot of it was explicitly articulated these are conversations you have with the doctors and nurses you just get stuff like you know you ask a totally respectable question like okay yeah so what is your procedure with the umbilical cord like do you let the umbilical cord exhaust itself dry up and then cut it would you cut immediately you're asking procedural questions that actually everyone should ask and the doctor turning to you with sneering contempt and saying well how do they do it in your country then if if you think Medicare so go to your country why don't you why don't you do it like that there and I reply straight up I'm from Canada I was born in Ontario Canada like what direction do you want to take this conversation in and you know once they similarly insulted my wife this way and saying like yes well I been to the doctor speaking well I have a degree in medicine what kind of education do you have from your country then and my my wife had to answer I have a PhD from Cambridge they were really like I'm laughing about it now four years later four years later to the day but let me tell you it was no laughing matter time even though you know after the doctors left she and I did joke about a bit me and my my ex-wife but Wow the level of hostility and again fundamentally the level of incompetence because like this is your one job all these doctors and nurses were specialized we were in a specialized wing of the hospital that is just for new births and even then I have to add we were in a specialized wing that is for normal births for babies with no health problems right right and this was just misery unbelieva misery I know I've mentioned somewhere in a YouTube video before at one point I actually did have to prevent a nurse from punching my wife or she got so out of control emotion I had to physically you know I didn't touch her but I had to move her out the door I did put my body in between the two of them and closed the door again so she was still screaming and yeah yeah and she she banged the door and this kind of stuff it was a it was a you know solid metal door or a fireproof door I guess the door made a big bang when she punched it or kicked it whatever she did um it was that raw it was that intense and very fundamentally apart from immaturity apart from all the other things complain about this is a form of incompetence you have to understand that because if that's your only job is to cope with newborn babies and the questions from parents at this time some of them simple straightforward questions like at one point they had to withdraw blood and like the form just said like five now I later figured out why this was was printed out from a computer and said look what is the unit like five milliliters of blood like what how much blood are you taking and that was actually the time when the nurse so angry she choice I had to physically prevent her from punching my wife and my wife my wife is bedridden by the way but wife is not standing up she's laid out you talk about punching a woman in a in a stretcher in in a hospital bed you know that time the question was actually said look you know before I can consents cuz you only want me to sign this yeah there's no unit how much blood he taking and you know what I'm certain it is now I'm certain because printed out from a computer and the computer couldn't make the Greek symbol it must have been microliters you know is supposed to have a special symbol after the five but sometimes when a computer can't do so that it just leaves it blank and none of them case the question team of nurses in the room and now the new what unit is this much closer it's not five liters people how much they couldn't and think they couldn't answer the question and again they couldn't even keep calm they couldn't even in a reasonable you know and helpful way deal with and respond to a question like that from a parent whose concern so that immense a the whole situation from day one should have been the happiest day of my life and instead it was the most harrowing and the most miserable not due to any health problem my daughter had my daughter was a hundred and ten percent healthy the pregnancy and the birth they were they were better than a hundred percent perfect I'll come back to that it was it was just the attitudes of the medical professionals of all including their attitudes in their hatred for us as vegans and we did get again this is not just interpreting body language or the look in somebody's eye you know they spelled it out for us and they asked us crazy questions about veganism they showed just how much contempt they had for us because we're that we were vegan and that they assumed we would be you know anti vaccine they assumed you were members of a cult they asked us directly about that if we were called member because we were vegan it was really really awful so purely for that reason not due to any conduct on my daughter's part not to Denny Connor to my ex-wife's part they were both impeccable not do they because like on my part surely due to the attitudes and medical professionals it was a harrowing and traumatizing experience and it need the Bennett's shouldn't have been but keeping it all the way real I just mentioned we were in a special wing it was just healthy babies it was just new births and I was always going out to buy food and come back one time I went and got food I came back and I just took a different staircase to get up to the room that oh but it's a shorter trip if I if I come up this way and I went through the special wing that is for babies born with a heart defect Wow just walking down that hallway just seeing the parents you know leaning against the wall standing in the hallway standing outside the doors I didn't you know I wasn't going to anyone's room I was just walking down the hallway the sense of ambient tragedy hanging in the air was on another level I said to my said that my wife when I got in look you know if you're ever feeling that we have it hard here in this wing of the hospital you're feeling sorry for yourself because we do it was the heart it was a horrible experience okay you can go through two pairs of double doors that way and go into that wing and those are the babies that were not born healthy and you can take a look at the expressions on the faces of the parents in there and and you can see what it's like for the people in this hospital who really have it hard but again keeping it all the way real as I'm want to do look guys this is also why I think we had doctors and nurses who were so incompetent I think the doctors and nurses who were really talented and really reliable were all being assigned to more high pressure wing as the hospital even was within the maternity ward you know so probably the best nurses and the best doctors we're dealing with the babies who have health problems or in those other departments or they're dealing with heart surgery or cancer surgery or you but there was so much specialization was a big famous hospital that I think we were getting the worst of the worst we're getting the least competent even within you know the doctors and nurses dealing with maternity boo-boos shocking unbelievable but that I just mentioned that also happens a lot in the military even of friends of mine but also just family members who have experiences know working in the military they've often said to me you know you get the situation where you know the really sharp people are are reassigned to two crucial departments and then when you're in a department that there's some more slack in the rope so to speak where things are not so urgent where things are not life threatening then you just seem to be shocked all the time you seem to be amazed at the levels of incompetence that you're dealing with so I think some of that was going on in that hospital now terrorism my own experience you know we did go through parent education in Canada we went to will be the word but in orientation meetings or special education meetings where medical professional talks you through what's gonna happen with the birth and what can go wrong and how to prepare yourself and they show you video of birth itself and of newborn babies and of what to expect and explain to you how the hospitals are organized so in Canada before we went to France for the birth I did actually have that background that education so you know as in most movies and TV shows I was expecting newborn baby to be this kind of screaming ugly covered with mucus covered with blood you know spectacle that you've seen in movies and that indeed that's what I saw even in these educational documentaries that I saw with with an educator breaking all these things down and when they actually handed my daughter to me on the contrary there was no blood on her there was no mucus on her she wasn't screaming she was completely peacefully sleeping she looked beautiful she didn't look like a newborn baby she looked like a 1 month old baby everything was completely fully for and developed every eyelash was perfect you know what's the eyebrows are perfect mm-hmm she wasn't upset she didn't seem to be surprised to be born she didn't look beautiful she looked different just a couple days later into the you know into her life but um you know I do remember what she looked like and they handed me this baby and time/thought this looks like a fake baby if I take a photograph myself holding this baby people will think it's at least a week old this does not look like the baby one moment after it was born now there are reasons for that including the fact that a lot of what you see the images of babies are born earlier in their term and my daughter went all the way through she was she had a full 100% development in the womb so she is in effect a little bit older than what a lot of other new babies look like and some of those things you see in a newborn baby the the mucus and so on depending on on how late into the final trimester you give birth I'm told that those things vary so again I got I did get some education in this but still it was striking and bizarre and Deena wanted this so I'm again I'm handed this baby and this should be a moment of joy or happiness or I should at least have my wife there next to me what have you but for purely bureaucratic reasons they put me in like a closet with this newborn baby it was this tiny windowless room with the door they put me there with the baby and then they separately relocated my wife to a room where she would wait there'll be the room she slept in and what have you to to her main room and I had to wait in this closet with this newborn baby now you know I think anytime this baby is gonna wake up and want to breastfeed or what-have-you this is a stressful situation and hours are going by and finally so there are two nurses working this special ward this special area there's no about there's nobody else there's no other patient there no other men there nope there's nobody else it's me with a baby in this closet and I'm waiting there for no legitimate reason right like I think I mean if they want to put me there for five minutes I don't know why and then my wife goes the other I have no idea why I'm guessing it's because legally there's a question of who actually has custody of the baby during those few minutes there's like I have no idea why and ultimately after a couple of hours ago I like this with me being in the you know low-key terrifying situation also you know I don't speak French that well of being assigned to this bizarre room and this Ward and not knowing why I'm not in the same room with my with my wife now my ex-wife you know finally I just have to come in I'm holding the baby and have to come out and have to stand in the hall in front of the office where these two nurses are and they just keep saying no just wait in the room swayed in the room and they say to me legally you can't stand there you have to go into the cubicle with me like it's a crime for you to stand in the hallway and I said to them in French call the police I said I understand your situation I can't wait in this room with my baby any longer and with nothing else by the way like you're just in a [ __ ] concrete cell with the baby it's not like I have a milk bottle or anything else either said if you have to call the police good call the police because I can't wait anymore and then obviously one nurse was more senior than the other and the more senior nurse said this is all in French of course she said dismissively in contemptuously so you just have to wait into that room until you know your wife has been moved into into her room as milk in her and the more junior nurse said that happened hours ago you had that moment where there are people in authority there are people wearing uniforms and they were just threatening to call the cops on me and and put me in jail really seriously they were that was what they were saying and they suddenly have a moment of recognition that they're in the wrong and that I've done nothing wrong and are they going to admit that or they're gonna apologize to me or what and this is France nobody nobody an authority they miss that they're wrong nobody so it's a terrifying thing actually about dealing with French government then there was a final stage where they wanted me to go out into a main hallway down another hallway turn left and go through an unmarked door there was a door with no sign and no doorknob there was a completely unmarked door in a hallway full of confusing doors because that was their protocol to prevent people from stealing the baby and they said okay so you leave the baby here and then you follow these complex instructions you go through the door and if you ask which door they say there's no sign there's no number it's just one of the doors you'll you'll figure it out and again I haven't slept in 48 hours well you know it's normal when you have a newborn baby you go for a long period of time I'm sorry it's the man unless you're sleeping while your wife's awake but I was awake the whole time went through the whole process with my ex-wife and you know so I haven't slept in very long time I just said to them no I'm not gonna figure it out I said look like we can I can go through another door like I'm not gonna do this like you know which was completely honest and completely true and again my ability to speak French is what it is and again so the senior nurse starts threatening to call the cops or something but I'm just admitting to you you guys have a complex system where for some reason you want me to be separated from my baby and then go through this other door and that's that's not gonna work right now you know and finally the junior nurse who was obviously the smarter of the two she just admitted that it's a problem like yeah like a lot of parents get lost looking from that door like it actually is a problem this it's a hidden door it's intentionally hard to find that's why they call it hidden and so the younger nurse just silently she walked out the door she said follow me she walked in the hallway and then she opened the secret door for me she pointed to the correct door so I got mine and I was glad I was completely right you know it would have been a disaster otherwise so then I went through that door and then the same nurse walked down and got my baby and brought it to me at the secret door so you know just now recently I've had a death in the family my father is now deceased and I was talking to my mom a little bit and you know philosophizing a bit with her using my robust background and Buddhist philosophy and European philosophy to say something profound and meaningful in the situation I'm pretty good at I can improvise philosophy lessons without without too much trouble and you know one of things I said to my mom was look you know you're going through this situation where the absurdity you have to deal with every day is the contrast between the profound and personal nature of why you were at the hospital and the antiseptic authoritarian bureaucratic dehumanizing nature of what the hospital is itself a lot of people if they had to choose between dying on a battlefield and dying on a hospital would rather die in a battlefield we rather die in any situation more meaningful or more poetic than being in a hospital it's just one is just not very well suited to the other you know hospitals not a good place to be born it's not a good place to die Hey it's it's lacking it's lacking the very soul that's such a place ought to have to be the place where you you first meet your own son there you first meet your own daughter you first hold a baby in your arms or where you say goodbye to your father or your grandfather as they're going through their last minute but no I mean for better and for worse that is the format you know that is the institution that our culture is created where people deal with all of these you know terrible and terrifying transitions of the beginning and ending of life and that in short is my story of how my daughter was born