The kidnapping of Baby Pea
I can’t say I’m impressed by the high drama that a couple called Marissa Bose and David Ellul have whipped up around themselves and the irritatingly-named Baby Pea.
Their resentment and bad behaviour – the latest installment of which is a judicial protest they have filed against the hospital authorities – stem from the fact that their plans for a home birth went awry.
They described themselves to the newspapers as people who “practise healthy living” – as though it’s some kind of religion and the rest of us who are not neurotic about it are unhealthy by default.
They wanted to avoid birth with doctors and nurses about, presumably because they think it’s unhealthy, like eating meat. But they found themselves in the very place they wanted to avoid, a maternity and delivery ward in the general hospital, their dreams shattered of squatting in the bedroom, possibly followed by a placenta ceremony.
Their resentful reactions, documented in minute detail on Facebook (of course), are a textbook example of the psychological foot-stamping of those who are determined to hate everything about something they didn’t want to do but ended up doing against their will.
Bose and Ellul didn’t want to go to hospital and they were determined to hate it so as to prove themselves right in their original decision not to go there. Their attitude is patronising and insulting to the countless thousands of women who have had their babies in hospital with medical staff around, having correctly guaged this to be the sensible thing to do.
When Bose had been in labour for the best part of a day with no sign of progress, the two presented themselves at the enemy’s gate and from there on in were constantly on guard against the hostile forces which surrounded them, and alert to the ever-present danger of doctors and – shiver – medical treatment.
When there is no progress during a long labour, the baby is delivered by emergency Caesarean section because by that time it is generally in distress. If the mother wishes to take the risk of killing herself through labour without being able to push the baby out, that is her choice. Legions of women have died in similar circumstances throughout history and stll die like that today in communities where there is no health-care, but it is not through choice.
A woman has no right to risk her baby’s life in those circumstances, and that’s why doctors are legally empowered – by the judiciary, when a request is upheld – to take the decision away from her and the child’s father.
But when Bose and Ellul were told that the baby would have to be delivered by Caesarean section, they behaved as though they had choices and set about discussing them. This is when the alarm went off for the doctors in charge. Houston, they really had a problem.
But so did Bose and Ellul who, still reeling from the nasty shock of discovering that nature didn’t care whether their baby was born or not, whether it lived or died (that’s nature for you) had to deal with the double whammy of hospitalisation and delivery by surgery.
Their disappointment at the frustration of their plans to let nature take its course manifested itself in anger and resentment towards the doctors and nurses. These became entrenched in their minds as The Enemy.
When David Ellul was asked to please leave the maternity ward for the night, as all new fathers are because you can’t have 20 men hanging around shooting the breeze in the small hours, he behaved as though he had been separated from his woman and baby by Nazi guards on the station platform outside Auschwitz.
He made a scene because he wanted to ‘watch over’ his family – why, did he think the ogres were going to eat them? – then demanded to see the regulations and camped out in the waiting-room, where he proceeded to spend his time creating a Facebook protest page and uploading the most embarrassingly stupid comments that he will no doubt live to regret.
You’d think that a man of around 40 years old, for he is not at all young as some sections of the newspapers have claimed, though she seems young enough to be his daughter, who has just become a father, would have priorities other than posting repeatedly on Facebook to rage against the machine like somebody stuck in the Che Guevera T-shirt period of post-adolescence.
His girlfriend, who appears to be 20 years his junior, was no better, posting comments on Facebook saying that she had been ‘stripped of her right to bond with her family’, prompting me to wonder whether she and her boyfriend had noticed that all the other fathers went home at night and did not hang around bonding en masse.
There was further trouble when the baby vomited a bit of blood and the doctors suggested a simple routine procedure which they refused because the internet told them it wasn’t necessary. The doctors brought in the agents of the law – which always happens and rightly so when parents try to prevent their children from getting necessary medical treatment – and the procedure went ahead.
Bose and Ellul amused themselves meanwhile – so very mature – by setting Facebook alight with their anger, claiming to their 700 friends that Baby Pea had been “kidnapped by Mater Dei”. And if you read that in translation, it’s even more ridiculous: kidnapped by the mother of God.
Then Bose’s mother, who should know better at her age, joined in the Facebook melee, adding her own two cents’ worth about the European Convention of Human Rights and the separation of children from their parents. She then turned up at the hospital to argue with the staff, instead of giving Ellul a piece of her mind and telling him to put a sock in it, while reassuring her daughter because stress is really not good for a woman who has just given birth.
At this point, you really can’t blame the staff for suspecting they had what’s known as a ‘social case’ on their hands. Picture the scene.
A middle-aged skinhead with no apparent regular job to go to is camped out in the hospital waiting-room refusing to go home because he has to ‘watch over’ the woman half his age, to whom he is not married, who has just had his baby. While camping in the waiting-room, his primary interest appears to be creating a media drama on the internet, in which he can star.
When his bag is searched by security staff, they find a knife and a bottle of vodka. He tells them that the knife is for peeling fruit while he waits, because he is a vegetarian – as though all vegetarians tote knives around with them in their bags – and that the vodka is for sterilising things and ended up in that bag by mistake.
The young woman appears to be totally in thrall to him and will not take a decision without him, listening to everything he says. The hospital staff know that she was at home in labour for the best part of a day before the man finally brought her to hospital. He appears to be controlling and to resent having his decisions over-ruled or undermined by others. He refuses to let the young woman out of his sight and doesn’t trust the doctors and nurses around her.
This may have been a gross misinterpretation of the facts, but to hospital staff, this is what it looked like. That is why they asked Marissa Bose whether she needed to speak to a social worker, whether her boyfriend drinks, and much in the same vein. The young woman’s reaction was to become even more hostile, when the reality is that she should have been grateful because hospital staff are now trained to be alert to these signs. They never were in the past.
What they hope to gain from this except for a brief bit of limelight for Ellul, who hasn’t had any since his performance in Porn, the Musical, is beyond me. I think his behaviour is childish, disgraceful and self-serving. Instead of trying to create a calm environment for his girlfriend so that she can look after their baby in serenity, he is doing the opposite.
He has made as much fuss as possible, telling everyone on Facebook that he’s had 12 hours sleep in five days in that hospital waiting-room, as though somebody is keeping him chained there and he’s not free to go home and sleep in his own bed like a normal, well-balanced man.
It’s common for men to act up with attention-seeking behaviour when their position as Most Important Person in the Household is displaced by the arrival of their first-born, but surely not to this extent.
I find ti very difficult to be criticial of Marissa Bose’s behaviour, because she is little more than a child herself and women who have just given birth are a mess of hormones. It’s a time when women are unlikely to take sensible decisions. So she can’t be blamed for anything she does or says now, especially when she appears to be led by the nose by a domineering older man.
But she really does need to grow up fast because that baby needs at least one parent who is an adult. Sadly, this doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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The moment I first read about it I felt that the parents should be ashamed of themselves. Healthy living they said! Their incompetence proved otherwise.
I was born at home during the worst months of the war. In the shelter, to boot. Does that make me more healthy than anyone else born in hospital?
I just feel sorry for the dedicated staff in the maternity ward who had to go through all this hassle.
The man is not fit to be called a father.
I can only speak from my own experience, but when son finally ‘popped out’ it was at around 10 p.m. after a rather long labour as is usual with a first child, they still let me go with my wife and child and stay with them for about half an hour till she settled in and ate something as she was obviously ravenous and exhausted after that.
Quite frankly I was exhausted too and to be brutally honest couldn’t wait to get home and hit the sack.
Why does the media give attention to this guru wannabe?
Healthy living with a bottle of vodka? Shacking up with someone half his age? Protecting and bonding with his child but then not marrying the mother? Simply pathetic. Thank you for sharing details with us, which The Times failed to mention.
What has all this got to do with age-difference and unmarried parents??
The issue is this man’s attitude and certainly not the age gap. This couple could have been of the same age, and behaved just as bad.
[Daphne – Janine, it’s not the age GAP. No one is going to remark negatively about the age gap between a woman of 40 and a man of 60, for instance. But the age gap between a girl-woman of 19 and a man of 42 generates negative remarks for reasons that should be obvious.]
I only followed this on http://www.timesofmalta.com, wherein Mr. Ellul kept repeating, repeating and repeating (along with links to his FB page and medical websites) that the newborn had gone through some precautionary tests after showing certain symptoms of concern. The tests apparently came back as negative for anything worrying.
Rather than being grateful for the reassurance, and thankful that there was nothing wrong with his child, his attitude was such that he even turned that against the medical staff, stating ad nauseum that, all of the tests came back negative, so there was nothing wrong with her in the first place, ergo the Doctors were wrong to have conducted the tests at all.
Imagine a doctor telling you that although your newborn baby is showing certain symptoms of condition X, Y or Z, but let’s not bother with any tests as, after all, it might turn out to be nothing!
Absolute backward thinking. Quite incredible. When it comes to medical conditions and procedures, a little knowledge is definitely worse than none at all, and in this particular case could have cost the ultimate price of a life, possibly two.
In the wake of cheap sensationalism a very-much-needed-and-to-the-point piece.
Marissa and David, if I may suggest, turn the page and enjoy your new responsibility!
Poor baby!!
The mother might not be to blame now but her choice of man is fairly questionable. Birds of a feather flock together.
I also hated they called the child Baby Pea for the media. It was clearly an attempt at recalling the horrible horrible British story of Baby P (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Baby_P). The local media were either smart enough to ignore this link or else totally missed it.
Sorry to burst your bubble, the Pea name is purely coincidental. Ask yourself, why on earth would the parents want to reference a child who was injured to death by its own parents?
The baby had obviously not been given a permanent name throughout all this commotion.
Well done for spotting what you thought was some clever subliminal message, too bad the rest of us were all left in the dark and ‘totally missed it’.
Bravo, you sick fuck.
[Daphne – Nice. Do you practise healthy living too?]
Rather rude, I dare say.
And no, I didn’t miss it myself. It seemed rather obvious.
I ask myself plenty of things. But I have had to learn to not overestimate people’s rationality and intelligence.
For example, I ask myself who calls their baby, Pea? Who refuses medical treatment for their newborn? Who is such a nut to think that natural treatments work in spite of overwhelming scientific evidence?
Questions and mysteries abound.
For those who bother to read the BBC, Baby P(ea) or anything that sounds similar will always be associated with a story of horror and abuse that an innocent child had to go through.
She had to be named Baby Pea because she is the offspring of two pea-brained spoilt brats who should be taken to court themselves on a myriad of charges.
How many hours were wasted at the hospital by doctors, nurses, security staff collectively? To say nothing of the time wasted by the police.
I sincerely hope that the court does not condone all this nonsense. And shame on the media which carried their story in such minute detail, gratifying the father’s ego.
Spot on. Couldn’t believe the article when I read it. At least it seems like the majority of commenters – for once – was quite fair minded and reasonable about it.
What I keep being reminded of is how plain statistics is so counter intuitive for most people. In regards to the Vitamin K shot it all boils down to the simple weighting of danger between A) taking it and possibly have claimed increased risk of Leukemia (because the internets knows best), or B) risking haemorrhagic disease. Even if it was shown it could increase risk of leukemia, that risk is obviously smaller, as deemed by the actual experts.
Reading the article it’s very easy to at times get sympathetic. The staff can be very difficult. But the sheer stupidity shown by this individual is just insane.
I know I’ll sound like a stereotype, but sometimes I look back at “old days” when men were actually men, not whimpering morons with too much emotions. Perhaps they were just a myth, but John Wayne wouldn’t have done that.
It is every pregnant woman’s wish to give birth naturally, however, this is not always possible. Both of my children were born by an emergency c-section, but instead of whining, being depressed or filing a judicial protest, I looked at my children and thanked God that hospital staff were around me when they were born. As to the bonding issue, I was awake during the whole process and had no trouble to find ways and means to bond.
Spot on!
At least there was a positive factor in this story. Most of the comments posted under the story were not in favour of this couple’s complaints, but against. Look at the bright side – at least not everything is lost!
It’s fascinating how the father keeps talking about his expectations based on his upbringing and expectations of medical care in Canada, which has a higher rate of infant mortality (4.99 per thousand births) than Malta (3.72, which is one of the lowest worldwide).
How irritating the name of the baby is has nothing to do with anything though.
I couldn’t agree more with your opinion on this ‘story’.
What I don’t understand is why did the Mater Dei staff not allow the couple to leave for a private hospital. Distances are short in Malta, the baby could have been whisked by ambulance within less than 10 minutes. In a private hospital the baby would have been well cared for without any doubt (and also without any doubt this couple would have ended up arguing with the staff there as well!)
Had this been allowed, at least they would have to pay for using up the private hospital’s staff’s time.
[Daphne – All bluff. How exactly did they plan to pay the fees at a private hospital? The reason they went to Mater Dei in the first place is because it’s free, and not because it’s next door.]
How would they pay the fees if, as D stated, he has no regular job. No, they wanted to leave Mater Dei as quickly as possible, so they invented that excuse.
A doctor cannot discharge a baby if he is not deemed well to be discharged. Even if the the parents want to discharge the baby at request. After all, what guarantee did the doctors have that David and Marissa were really going to a private hospital?. They could have just taken him home. It is the doctor’s responsibility to protect the baby.
For once I agree with you
Absolutely spot on, as usual.
How sad – poor child.
It’s fools like these who are forcing health professionals worldwide to waste more and more time, effort and money in ‘defensive’ medicine – time and funding stolen from the vast majority who want their healthcare providers to dedicate all their efforts to prevent and heal illness and not continually having to make sure that their backsides are covered at all times
In ‘Porn’ he sang about having a P.H.D. Seems like he’s the P.H.D. after all.
Also, you mention the 700 members of the Facebook group. Facebook groups do not require the consent of the user to be added to a group.
Anyone already in the group can add as many of their ‘friends’ as they like to the group and the added ‘friend’ has no choice except from being able to remove themselves from the group once already in it.
Some people’s limited use (or knowledge) of Facebook, or worse-yet their fear of being judged by removing themselves after having been added involuntarily, leads to a ballooning of group membership which is highly misleading.
I would have thought making a quick exit from Facebook is the first requirement of practising a healthy lifestyle.
This bloke should light up an old fashioned cigar, pour himself a double scotch and relax. He’s got the sympathy of all of us Maltese men, giving birth is hard work.
Between the bigotry and numerous false statements in this article the only words that come to mind are “unprofessional journalism” and “libel”.
[Daphne – Marissa, what ON EARTH are you doing on the internet when you have a new baby to look after? Libel? You have just discovered the first law of publicity: you can’t splash yourself all over the media and expect people to keep quiet about what they think of you. Like all bigots, Marissa, you and Mr Ellul think everybody else is one and that you’re not. But your story is one of quintessential bigotry: not wanting to give birth in hospital because birth at home is best; being sanctimonious about ‘practising healthy living’ when what you probably mean is diet turned into religion, which is another form of neurosis and not necessarily healthy at all; thinking yourselves so superior because you espouse an alternative lifestyle, and then exploding with anger and resentment because, despite the healthy living and alternative lifestyle, you found to your great dismay that you had birthing problems while inferior women who eat meat and hold bigoted views just pop them out. I just think that you’re very young, very much influenced by the man in your life, and very much at risk of not allowing your child to have a normal life. So instead of spending your days getting bigoted and angry on the internet, have a good think.]
A “Jiminy Cricket” has really hit the nail on the head and put it in language the couple might understand – on the “Free Baby Pea” Facebook page:
“Jiminy Cricket
Quite frankly, you should all be ashamed.
Your baby vomits blood, do you:
A) Give the baby treatment, because vomiting blood is sort of a universal symptom of something being very wrong.
B) Try and start a national scandal
David, you can talk about Canada all you want, but you know that you’re not allowed to carry a knife there, you know you can’t bring a bottle of vodka to the hospitals there, you know you can’t be abusive to hospital staff there, you know that there, by now, your child would have been taken into Child Services, and you would be arrested for assault, carrying a concealed weapon and endangerment of your child’s life by now.
Instead, Mater Dei took your decision away about giving your child life-saving treatment. You may not think it is, but the hospital does, and the people there are ever so slightly more qualified to make that decision than you are. And even after all that, you get to keep your child, as soon as treatment is finished.
How is that kidnapping? That is the complete opposite. These people have the power to take your child away *forever*, and a damn good case to do so, and even with all your hate mongering and abuse, they’re still returning your child.
Mariella, this is your God damn grandaughter, and I don’t understand how a woman can talk about the baby having an infection (infection + vomiting blood, come onnnnnn, how sick could the baby POSSIBLY be) and mere minutes after complain about how the doctors have no right to be treating the baby.
Marissa, you’re smarter than this. This is about your baby’s life. You need to stop listening to David and your mother. What matters isn’t how much you see your baby in these next few days, because you’ll have a lifetime together.
Do you realize without the hospital, without this treatment, you might not have gotten that lifetime? You might have died in labor, or Pea might have died within weeks of being discharged.
You are a mother. Nothing else matters. All that matters is your child’s life. I’m sure you’d be willing to die for Pea, so why is it so hard to let go for a few days so that you two can share the span of an entire lifetime together?
Please Mar, you’re far far to smart for this, you need to stand up for yourself and your baby’s life.
4 hours ago”
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_165812503439395
“…These people have the power to take your child away *forever* … and even with all your hate mongering and abuse, they’re still returning your child.”
How merciful of the demi-gods.
In the USA, where demi-gods are instructed to use their full powers robotically, that baby would have been forfeited by the CPS and thrown into foster care. Mr Ellul would have been tasered, caged, beaten, processed and ‘correctionified’.
And this crowd would still be throwing stones.
@kev Taht Bush Ellul kien jispicca Guantanamo Bay.
Obama is no different, Leonard. If anything, he is more under the control of the global banksters than Bush was. America has a one-party system, just like the Soviets. Unlike that of the Soviets, it’s got two faces: one is painted blue, the other red. But they sing from the same tune sheet.
Daphne…I have a feeling that this was David using Marissa’s name. Think about it….What exactly would Marissa libel you for?
Giving birth must be one of the commonest shared experiences out there, so accept the fact that most people have been there, done that and violently disagree with your take on the whole experience.
Or at least, with the way The Times’ report presented your case to the public. That newspaper did you no favours, let me tell you.
Also, while having a child is a special and important time for parents, for the hospital staff it’s just another day at work. We can’t expect them to get all teary every time a child is born. They might not fuss and coo, but they do keep a sharp eye on the health and progress of the mother and baby.
Is it possible that during nine long months of pregnancy no one told you this? Or did you immerse yourself in those twee homebirth websites advertising birthing tubs, olive oil and a fat doula standing by with a towel?
The flipside to that story is the grimmer one of mother and child mortality rates before medicine offered mothers and babies a better chance of returning home alive. Take my advice, put this behind you and enjoy your baby. You’ll need to build up your strength for the coming battle when school starts.
When I first read of this story in The Times, I thought Daphne will surely comment on it in her blog; she not only commented on the story but she filled us up with the histrionics of the father and the grandmother of Pisella (Sorry could not help it!). I am looking forward to know about the court case instituted by Ellul against Mater Dei hospital.
It is amazing how Daphne has the extraordinary capability of putting into words what I, and I think many others, feel about this whole drama.
Thank you for this, Daphne.
As to the father, the least said about him the better. There is no word for someone who tries to obstruct the doctors and nurses and who think he knows more than they do. It is after all a question of trust and I have no doubt that we have very capable doctors and nurses.
Another great article, thanks Daphne!
thanks….
Hey there Daphne,
It’s been a while since we’ve spoken. The last time was an embarassing number of years ago when my mother would bring me over, and I’d play with your kids, have a good time, and the fact that you were a columnist was of course the last thing that would cross my mind.
So of course it’s refreshing as this whole thing is going on to finally hear from you again, as a much needed voice of reason. Or anything that isn’t outright insanity.
When I first heard Pea had been taken away because her father thought a bottle of vodka and a knife were the sort of things you tote around in a hospital, I of course felt bad for Bose, whom I know personally, but I understood where the authorities were coming from.
[Daphne – You know, I sort of gathered that Marissa Bose is around my sons’ age because I know so many of her Facebook friends as five-year-olds at children’s parties. That’s one of the things that gave me a whole different perspective on the story to what I had been reading in the newspapers. I had a feeling I knew Ellul around years ago and that he’s more my generation, and then I saw photos of him on Facebook (ah, where else?) showing him as a grown man already in 1994. And now it turns out that he has another child in Canada, who he doesn’t seem to be bonding with and protecting all that much. Bad news all round.]
The horror came when, as I’m dragged into the Facebook front, I realize that the child has not, in fact, been taken away. Yes, even after being verbally abusive to hospital staff, refusing to give their life necessary treatment, and bringing a knife and liquor to a hospital, even then, all the hospital has done is *temporarily* take away the parents’ choice as to whether it receives treatment or not.
“Kidnapped” may not be the word I’d want to use in conjunction with what are apparently the most forgiving people this planet has ever seen. Mater Dei has never been so accurate a name.
You’d think with all this, there’d be a huge social backlash as people reel back in horror at these parents petitioning so their child will be freed from the terrors of medical treatment. But all you see as you go through the Facebook group that everyone has been dragged into is words of support, the lynching of nay-sayers, outrage that the hospital would want to give medical treatment to a child vomiting blood.
When one sees dozens of people outraged not at, as many would assume, the child being taken away by social services, but rather people being outraged that parents refusing to give their child medical treatment were told to get stuffed, one begins to lose hope.
Be it the mother who is able to cough out the words “has an infection” in the same paragraph where she slams Mater Dei for giving the baby medical treatment, to the father’s outright lies to garner support. No, carrying a knife on you in Canada is not legal.
Perhaps sharing your opinions with a man who is quite intimately acquainted with Canada isn’t the right thing to do. By now his homeland would have arrested him for verbal abuse of hospital staff, carrying a concealed weapon, and endangerment of his child’s life.
I may have gone on a while, but when one can’t voice one’s opinions simply because there’s a lynch mob following feet behind you, articles like this come as a welcomed sigh of relief.
My thoughts exactly! I thought, what spoilt and immature brats.
[Daphne – She perhaps, but he hardly qualifies as a brat, given that he’s middle-aged and trying to pretend that he’s not.]
You’re talking about this as if it was a horrible expierence for the entirety of Mater dei hospital. It could be that certain obligations have to be practised by the staff in order to safe a child’s life. However your misrepresenting tone demonises the ellul and bose family. Thier child was born and their child is the most important person within this debacle. I can’t understand your premature writing etiquette, within this blog. Your writing is extremely one sided, and fact is you seem to have ignored the idea that a severe amount of emotional and physical stress, may have led to missunderstandings, and the anxiety the ellul, bose family hah had, could have culminated towards preliminary actions.
[Daphne – I had three children at the state hospital when it was nothing like it is now. I would never have dreamt of making any such stupid scenes, and I’m not exactly a shrinking violet. I am also old enough now to recognise even at a great distance a man with chippy issues who’s going to be trouble for the people around him. You might relate to his behaviour because you’re half his age, and cannot recognise that it is abnormal and absurd in somebody of around 40.]
That might be the case that i connect to the ellul family since you basically mean that they acted not as adults but prematurely. However i can understand you, and that it was a different normative value, back in the day. However this is Malta today, and our generaion has been influenced way heavier by our right to act then you have done, we’re in the EU , and if we at times feel uncomfortable we should express it, not be denounced, are we living in a catholic theocracy or what?
[Daphne – Michael, David Ellul is not your generation but mine: he is 42 and I am 46. Marissa Bose has not been influenced by being in the EU but by Ellul, because she is 19 and he is 42. As for your generation being more ready to stand up for your rights, I hardly think so.Unlike my generation, you have never had to face any true test. Would that the only ‘right’ I had to stand up for at 20 was the right to have my boyfriend sit on a hospital chair near my bed through the night.]
You still don’t understand me, i know marissa and ellul personally, you are basically saying that marissa is under the influence by ellul, to the extent that she can’t make her own decisions. Listen i’m not going to go on their story; firstly because it would be unfair in discussing this on a blog, secondly my argument doesnt need to extend to that level since it’s personal.
However stating that i believe you had many problems growing up, and having this patronizing tone towards me doesnt help our argument, ive lived in malta, vienna and now i live in the UK doing my BA’s, where i spend the whole day constantly trying to fight for my right to study, (student protests on the 10,11,10) , what im trying to point out daphne, maybe the reasons and actions of mr ellul seem somewhat unconventional, but thats normal within a democratic society, and that influence can be people, or the expansion of globalisation, etc, (i’m sorry couldn’t think of anything more appropriate)
Just because you don’t approve of their actions, being comparative with your own lifestyle, does not make you a conventional person, and the right to be able to judge as a higher authority. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t give you the right to basically report on something that could well damage their future lives within malta. I hardly can imagine that you’d enjoy it if something like that was reported on you.
[Daphne – Michael, you miss the point that they are the ones who went to the media, who used the media for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of drawing attention to their situation. Had they not said anything, nobody would have noticed and nobody would have bothered. Hospital staff are bound over not to speak. You may know them personally, but that does not mean you have the insight to assess their character or behaviour, or the experience-induced cynicism with which to regard the behaviour of an out-of-work man of 42 who fathers a child with a girl of 19 and then spends his days trying to cause trouble on the internet. And quite frankly, Michael, instead of spending your days fighting for your right to study, you’d be better off learning how to punctuate and use capital letters, because it’s an essential requirement for a bachelor’s degree, I believe. I understand that they’re your friends, and I can see where you’re coming from, so I don’t expect you to share my point of view. And I think you should be wary of anyone my age, like David Ellul, who hangs around with people your age as though he’s one of you. It’s weird and creepy, and it means that he’s incapable of forming appropriate relationships with people his own age. I know exactly how old you are, Michael, because I remember you as a baby. You’re even younger than my youngest.]
“He uses vodka for sterilising things” – presumably baby Pea’s bottle and dummy too? Tigih gholja.
skuzi, as far as I know vodka is not a natural method for sterilising things if they really opt for natural methonds. Water which is turned into vapour is a natural steriliser.
If this is all true, the new dad is not only a spoilt brat but also a very FUNNY one.
Ma jmissux mar Mater Dei ghax b’xejn. Ghax ma marx Saint Philips, mhux boghod wisq minn Mater Dei.
Did the labouring mother actually walk to the hospital? Does anybody have this information?
Well, the funny thing is he has his first-born in Canada.
Poor baby
And I presume that vodka is also a crucial part of their healthy-living lifestyle.
Why didn’t they let her give birth naturally?
It’s her decision, and if she is her boyfriends puppet, so be it.
A child’s life was at stake, true, but it’s their child and if they wanted nature to run its course, then it is entirely their decision.
[Daphne – You’re wrong there. The law protects children against their parents. Children are autonomous beings, not extensions of their parents. Parents do not own them and hence, they have no right to destroy them. Adults have every right to refuse treatment for themselves: that is sacrosanct. But they have no right to refuse treatment for their children, because it over-rides the rights of the child.]
You’re correct on this one point Daphne, in fact it’s coming to the point where it’ll be next to illegal to become a parent very soon if we keep going on like this. Please before you reply just check how pre & post natal natal work in countries such a Sweden. As a father I know, I’ve been there and experienced it myself, I was allowed to be with my family in our unit within the ward, this is not about siding with anyone but it does illustrate the fact some policies do need reviewing & it’s just delusional to state they don’t. This is not about any “inferiority” nonsense but to aspire, to improve.
[Daphne – Where did you spend the night in your unit in the ward in Sweden? On a put-me-up that the hospital authorities are expected to provide for obsessive fathers who won’t go home to sleep? Please, let’s be realistic. Staying with the mother and child during the day is one thing. Staying with them at night is pointless and neurotic and gets in the way of other people, not least the other women in the room who may not want other people’s husbands and lovers hanging around while they sleep.]
What I did was to go home, get a good night’s rest so the next day I could be of real assistance to my wife and our child. If I stayed there I would have just been a diaper sniffer and of absolutely no use at all.
Some people just don’t realise how lucky they are to walk out of that ward with their baby alive and well and who they have to thank for it.
Madoffi, isn’t it enough for the fathers to join the wives at 10.00 am up to 7.00 pm.
(Hafna li jistghu iraqqdu r-razza u r-radika maghhom meta jitwieled baby).
It’s amazing how short human memory is.
“Nature” is very nasty. When birthing was left up to nature, so many babies died that we didn’t even count them, we just counted the mothers who died with them.
[Daphne – My grandmother’s sister died in childbirth, and that was in the 1940s, not the 1840s. She left two toddlers and the baby she had just delivered, who survived. So much for natural childbirth and the horrors of medicine.]
Childbirth is described as the shortest journey anybody will ever take, but the most dangerous. There are a ridiculous amount of things that can go wrong before, during, and after labour and that’s why it has to take place in a hospital or with the means to get to one fast.
While it is technically possible in Malta, it should also be mentioned that a personal midwife service at home is not the government’s duty to provide.
There you go. The statist mentality at work.
It is only through choice that society becomes more mature. With choice comes responsibility for one’s actions. Wrong choices yield undesired consequences. You learn from your own mistakes, but mostly through the mistakes that others made – if allowed to do so.
With a Nanny State taking care of us from cradle to grave, and Big Brother watching over us ready to cage us for minor infringements and non-crimes, there is only one end-game: a mass of sheeple herded by a collectivist world government.
We’re not there yet, but that is clearly the direction.
Modern-day Statists are a living illusion – just like the 280 million Soviet citizens who thought their media was pluralistic and that the Soviet Union was the most just and free country in the world. They also believed that criticising the system could only lead to subversion, agitators and a capitalist take-over. I’m not joking. That’s the illusion that sustained the Soviet masses. And they weren’t dumb people, they were just duped.
Kev, if I am not wrong, you were once one of those duped by Soviet communism. You must know what if feels like.
The illusion I’m referring to is different from that of being ‘duped’ by a political belief. I lived in Malta at the time. In those days (1970s) if you were anti-clerical and progressive, then calling yourself a ‘communist’ was one cool option.
It is only when I studied in the Soviet Union that I realised how the illusion works. Take this from a sane person, Ciccio: you are living another illusion… a much more sophisticated illusion. And since you’re immersed in it you don’t know what in hell I’m talking about.
Kev,
Illusion is the first of all pleasures – Oscar Wilde.
I was also fairly amused at the use of “healthy living” as a reason for refusing treatment.
I have one thing to say to such people: compare the infant mortality rate, life expectancy and other metrics in 1700 with what is achieved nowadays.
And they had the audacity to file a judicial protest. I hope the court not only shoves this protest up where it belongs but they fine this absurd couple for the enormous effort staff had to dedicate to them, possiby endangering the lives of other newborns with functioning parents.
There are no grounds for libel; Daphne’s article will be corroborated by Mater Dei’s staff without a doubt and all you’ll be left with is a frown and possibly your self-claimed healthy living lifestyle.
The court certainly can do so.
It’s called a ‘frivolous and vexatious’ lawsuit.
This is a cartoonist’s paradise.
Am glad that the Bose are following this blog. By now they must have realized that many people are against their actions. As Marissa said “unprofessional journalism”. The Times made many think that the parents were utterly maltreated.
“Healthy living life style”, “the natural course” and plenty of nonsense, and when the real labour pain starts then everybody wants the pain-killing remedies.
As it happened with Ms Bose, who didn’t refuse the epidural.
When I gave birth to my daughter and told my gynaecologist that I was interested in the epidural, she told me that it was a very wise decision. She said that she had met many women who wanted the child birth to be as natural as possible but when the pain starts, all of a sudden they forget all about the natural process and start asking for everything which could kill the pain.
In 2010 in Italy there are maternity hospitals who do not even offer this option to women in labour.
[Daphne – Well, lucky you. At St Luke’s in the 1980s you had to have a natural childbirth whether you wanted one or not, because the Labour government was keen to save money on unnecessary expenses and fill up that kaxxa ta’ Malta. And so women in labour were not given an epidural even if they screamed and begged for one and had been in labour for hours.]
Some people never change. “l-injurant, injurant” nismaghhom jghidu.
No matter what the state offers to people, there is no way to change the idiot’s attitude. Even though Malta is one of the top countries in Europe in terms of hospital care but people do not appreciate what the state is doing for us and they don’t even inform themselves. I met women who didn’t even know that an epidural could be taken even in a natural birth. I was called “ghageb” by family members for opting for an epidural.
Imma l-aqwa li kulhadd imaqdar u jeqred
There is a story from the late 70s at St. Luke’s hospital about the birth of a baby when the state of the hospital was in a parlous condition due to the doctors’ strike. The apprehensive father of the baby was waiting outside when the midwife came out saying “Congratulations, baby boy, 7 pounds”. The father immediately gave the midwife 10 pounds and told her “Keep the change”.
I agree that these parents were extremely rude and irresponsible but why can’t the father sleep by the mother’s side while she is in hospital?
[Daphne – Because mothers who have just had babies sleep in wards like other patients do, not in rooms, and there are no couches, just chairs in which you sit upright. A more pertinent question would be: why would the man want to sleep at the hospital in the first place? What’s the obsession? ‘Abroad’ you might be permitted to do that for no reason other than it’s a l-o-n-g drive home, but when we all live five to 20 minutes from the hospital, that’s kind of ridiculous. Show me a man who’d rather spend the night on a chair in a ward full of women groaning about their stitches and nursing their babies, and I think ‘Oh, oh, something wrong there.’ Most men I know would rather head straight home for a beer and a good night’s sleep in their own bed, after 20 hours of breathing and panting and screaming and blood and oh, at last, a baby. And make no mistake, most women I know would rather be left in peace after labour and delivery than have to deal with a husband shifting around in a chair and twitching with boredom or messaging on a mobile phone or nipping out to take calls from work.]
My children were born abroad and each time I was allowed to sleep on the couch in my wife’s room during the two days she was in hospital. It’s not as if we still have wards.
[Daphne – Yes, of course we still have wards.]
One thing I’ve also noticed with Maltese hospital staff is that they often tend to become defensive or patronizing when a patient questions their actions. I realize that dealing with the public is generally stressful but patients’ views should be respected even in a state hospital managed by over-worked and understaffed medical teams.
[Daphne – There are ways and ways of questioning actions, and I’ve spent enough time in A & E and other hospital wards and departments to know exactly why hospital staff become immensely irritated. There are two kinds of patient who question things: the incredibly stupid, who are easier to handle because their questions are genuine, and the Clever Dicks (male and female) who think they know more than doctors but whose questions are designed purely to show how smart they are and how smart doctors are not. If doctors see that you are reasonably well informed and that your questions are genuine, they react very positively – because after all, that is the easiest sort of patient to deal with: cooperate and informed.]
Come on, get over it. When we had a son, I saw the baby, made sure both he and his mother were settled down, drove home and had the best sleep in months.
And you know what? The next day I had to go to work because not everyone can afford to spend days Facebooking and stirring up senseless arguments. Hospital staff getting defensive? I was probably at another Mater Dei then!
If my experiences are anything to go by, probably one of the last good sleeps in months too !
Yeah, let him sleep by her side and ask the nurse to get him a bottle of tonic water and some ice- he’s got his own vodka.
“most women I know would rather be left in peace after labour and delivery than have to deal with a husband shifting around in a chair and twitching with boredom”
Most women I know would rather have a sister or a friend with them DURING labour rather than a (useless) husband cracking inappropriate jokes …
Well Josephine,
If YOUR husband was useless to you during labour it doesn’t mean all husbands are!
My wife didn’t want me to leave her side for a second during labour, and I don’t know what husband/partner would crack jokes, inappropriate or otherwise, during labour.
Watch Joseph take sides with Bose and Ellul, not because they are right but because Mater Dei is involved. Such a sensitive issue with the LP!
One may only mention the hospital and the LP would jump like Charles Mangion did on Bondiplus describing cost of Mater Dei and the new cancer hospital as ‘typical’ Nationalist government capricious spending.
This couple should be shamed and not permitted to spend taxpayers’ money on an indefensible act of lunacy.
I think Ellul is just trying to get the foreign press interested in his ‘story’ in the hope of making a penny out of it. We will probably see the headlines on one of those trashy magazines: Our baby was kidnapped by the hospital staff in Malta…
I’m guessing they’ll be wanting to home-school Baby Pea, and if that’s not allowed they’ll be kicking up another royal fuss. What a nightmare couple! Poor, poor, child. The other one, seemingly abandoned in Canada seems lucky by comparison.
Dear Daphne
You read my mind……
“Most men I know would rather head straight home for a beer and a good night’s sleep in their own bed, after 20 hours of breathing and panting and screaming and blood and oh, at last, a baby” (and oh god I missed the second half of the footie too.)
Exactly what I did…..and as a footnote, if he was anywhere else in the “first world” with his bottle of Vodka and his knife in a public hospital he’d be banged up in the nick and she’d be on the watch list as vulnerable.
Grrr, you scooped me. To say nothing about putting it much better than I will on Saturday.
You are allowed to deliver your baby at home. There are midwives and gynaecologists who will attend to you. But this couple didn’t even have a midwife there with them during the long labour. It seems they didn’t want to pay a cent and wanted the state to accommodate all their expectations.
Precisely. And if they wanted to sleep together after the birth they could have gone to one of the private hospitals which caters for this – for example Capua St James in Sliema where there are no wards but large rooms with ample space complete with personal bathroom.
Having mom, dad and baby in a good-sized room is OK, but it won’t be fair for the newborns at Mater Dei if all the fathers were allowed in the same ward.
It’s very obvious here that this couple didn’t want to spend a cent, and I bet that as someone said before me we’ll soon see the headlines in some trashy magazine “Evil Maltese Doctors Kidnap Baby” or something similar.
Our children were born at home, but it wasn’t my wife and me alone and unprepared. One doesn’t leave things to nature, sometimes we have to change the course of nature, through medicine. Nature sometimes kills or maims people.
Natural birth at home was a positive experience for my family. We went to childbirth classes and knew what to expect.
Home births are far more expensive than those in hospital. A pro-nature guru should fork out his money to support his theories. I suppose eating out is conveniently a no-no for such people.
Thank God there is electronic access control to the wards at Mater Dei Hospital. It’s a nice way to keep such people away from the ward.
When babies are breast-fed sometimes they suck some of the mother’s blood and spit it out with the milk. Doctors in hospitals don’t take chances when this happens, so they do what they deem fit in the circumstances.
Ara sewwa jghidu ta, li it-tfal dejjem vittmi, jahassra. Kumbinazzjoni jien kont Mater Dei u fl-istess ward meta gara dan il kaz, ghax kellhi twelid fil-familja.
M`iniex xi wahda inhobb infahhar fejn m`hemmx lok, imma nista naccerta lil kull min qed jaqra li ghandna ghalfejn verament niftahru bl-isptar li ghandna.
Indafa, attenzjoni, ghajnuna, kmamar mghammrin b`kollox, il-veru ma nistax insib difett wiehed hlief il-mixi forsi ghax inzertajt ma nhobbx nimxi.
Bsart li irranga hafna l-isptar imma mhux daqshekk. Sijja l-omm u kemm it-tarbijja ituhom attenzjoni kbira, lanqas tilhaq taghfas il buzzer li ma tarahomx gejjien jigru.
U l-irgiel ghandhom altru hin ma’ l-omm u it-tarbijja – gurnata shiha tista tghid. Altru bizzejjed. kif tista tistrieh f`ward mimlijja nisa ghadhom kif welldu u bit-trabi hdejhom? Heqq, l-omm pacenzja, imma wara gurnata r-ragel bir-ragun li jmur id-dar u jistrieh go soddthu.
Umbaghad jigu dat-tnejn, imisshom jisthu, u jinsinwaw li ghandna servizz hazin. Minn fuq li probabbli salvawlhom il hajja tat-tarbijja ghax is-sintomi li uriet il-baby ma kienux ta’ min jinjorhom. Flok irringrazzjaw il-Bambin talli sabu min ha azzjoni mill-ewwel ghal iktar testijiet, irrabjaw ukoll!
Il-maggioranza tal-genituri kienu huma stess jitolbuhom, biex iserrhu rashom. Healthy living, my foot! L-ewwel u qabel kollox it-tarbija, mela kemm jieklu u jghixu “healthy”? Il-hmerijja hi, li hafna nies jemmnuhom u veru mhux gust XEJN milli qalu.
Jien insaqsi “dawn in-nies jixirqilhom ikunu genituri”? Jien, wara l-esperjenza li kellhi Mater Dei din il-gimgha ma ghandhi XEJN hlief tifhir ghal-isptar. Veru imissna inkunu kburin u rikonoxxenti.
Waqt li kont qed naqra l-messagg ta’ Pat ergajt ftakart f’dak l-istaff li hemm fil-maternity wing. Nies li personalment baqghu f’qalbi ta’ dak kollu li jaghmlu mal-ommijiiet u t-trabi taghhom. Jiena nibqa grata lejhom ghomri kollhu.
Midwives, pedjatra, nurses, gynaecologists, dedikazzjoni li hierga verament mill-qalb.
David has just turned 42, and I’m guessing Marissa is around 20 just because as far as I remember she is the same age as me. I’m not sure it is fair of me to say but the age difference is really quite sickening. Not because it is of 22 years, but because she is only 20. No woman has completely matured by this age, and having a child with a 42 year old man will surely render her absolutely powerless.
[Daphne – That’s exactly what I thought, and you can be sure it’s what the hospital staff feared, too. Yes, she must be around 20, because she’s even younger than my sons and her Facebook page says she left school three years ago. I was certain that I knew Ellul around in some context from years ago and that he is my kind of age, not my children’s (so he is). You’re right to be uneasy: it’s not the age gap, but at those particular ages – 19/20 and 42 – it’s creepy and raises questions about the balance in the relationship.
A man of 42 isn’t looking for a normal, equal relationship when he takes up with somebody who is three years out of school; he is looking for the same relationship that men who marry Chinese or Filipina brides do, with the advantage that there are no cultural differences. There’s a photo of him on his Facebook page, lying on a bed and reading a copy of Guns and Ammo magazine, which really sums up the cliche. These sorts of situations always raise the alarm when a fuss is kicked up somewhere like a hospital. But heaven knows why it didn’t raise the alarm with the girl’s mother, who seems thrilled with him. And now I’ll be accused of bigotry again. ]
When my sister and I first read David’s posts on Facebook we both looked at one another quizzically knowing it didn’t sound right. Admittedly the idea that there might have been a lack of sensitivity or understanding coming from a Maltese nurse or doctor does not seem totally unbelievable.
Let’s not pretend customer relations in Malta are at a high standard in any sector. With that said, it seems quite clear to me that the couple had no intention of cooperating from the start, with a serious lack of maturity coming from both the father and the mother.
I feel as though they not only let their own superiority complex overshadow the actual good intentions of the doctors and nurses, they also failed to see that any action taken by the hospital with regards to testing etc.. would always be in the best interests of the child. Doctors and nurses did not go into medicine to end up with unnecessary blood on their hands, nor to split up couples.
Surely David should have taken a moment before reacting so angrily on Facebook to consider the fact that having been found with a knife and a bottle of vodka, whether explainable or not, was a huge blunder on his behalf, and had another man been found with that content in his bag, David himself would probably not have wanted him wandering around the hospital.
I honestly feel sorry for this couple because in an island as small as Malta they are always going to be remembered for this ridiculous over-dramatization of what could have been a beautiful moment in their relationship.
I wonder what the future holds for that poor child – with that name and with those parents, my heart goes out. Hafna reciti
Rita, you expressed my thoughts exactly. This is what Baby Pea went through in her first few nights in the hands of these parents. I can’t imagine what she will have to endure in her entire childhood!
We can only hope that this plonker gives himself cirrhosis of the liver with his vodka, refuses treatment and dies.
I do not think that the story of baby Pea ends in the coming weeks. Wait until the baby arrives at the stage when MMR injections have to be given. MMR injections are anathema to people like Ellul who believe blindly in the internet and “natural” treatments.
Well maybe the explanation for all this is that this guy is artistic and he has to behave in an unusual manner…….like say Mozart or Michelangelo….
This couple pisses me off more than those religious nuts who don’t get medical treatment for their children because they believe prayer is the answer.
Whether she is a young woman influenced by an older bully controlling type of a man, she is first and foremost now and until she dies a mother.
And as a mother your child’s welfare comes first no matter what.
Whether this moron is trying to do all this to jumpstart his useless acting job again, or if he is just a controlling egotistical jerk who thinks he is always right, I personally don’t give a damn. However, to say that the hospital was at fault is beyond ridiculous.
I would not wait for my husband to check whether or not it’s ok with him to do a test if my child was coughing up blood. I would put my CHILD FIRST, do the test then tell him about it when I see him, if I can’t get him on the phone.
But with the knife and vodka and Facebook drama it just sounds so what the Americans would call ‘shady’. Supposedly this was one of the best days of their lives and they turned it into a very bad soap opera.
Shame on them, shame on the grandmother and it’s also a shame that their child and the public are going to have to go through all of this again when she is two months old and they decide that they won’t give her her vaccinations.
It is hard for me to comprehend in this day and age in Malta where medicine is so rightly offered and available to all parents for free for their children, that some parents do not act on it.
Also, most women don’t want their husband or boyfriend with them after giving birth, because we want to rest, not chat or bond. We want to shower, we want to get some sleep, and we don’t want the father hanging around in a chair or nagging that his back is aching and that he’s hungry or wants a coffee.
When I gave birth to my kids, an hour after each birth I told him to go and show the pictures of the baby to the family instead of what I really wanted to say, which was bugger off and let me sleep.
“…we don’t want the father hanging around in a chair or nagging that his back is aching and that he’s hungry or wants a coffee.”
What a lovely picture you paint of your husband. I feel the need to point that not all husbands sit there whining. I think most of us are very well aware of what our wives have gone through and even though us men often fail emphatically in many ways, I can assure that with good intentions we actually can offer a hand of support as well.
@ Pat
Didn’t mean to offend you or anyone but I’m sorry I think you have misunderstood the point I was trying to make. I was not saying that fathers do not offer support to their wives or girlfriends.
Most fathers are very helpful during childbirth, my husband included. My point was AFTER childbirth not during. Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. Most men mean well. All very well said and done but not after you have given birth, I’m afraid.
After a women goes through hours of labour and are luckily enough to be blessed with a bundle of joy, we do not think that we have just pushed out a pumpkin from the size of a pea hole. We don’t think of the pain we just went through as it’s instantly forgotten.
We just need to rest as we need to get our strength back, so I’m sorry to say father’s feelings do not come into it. It’s a mothers time to get herself in order and worry about her baby. We know that we will see the father again during visiting times.
I love my husband dearly and I have for 15 years but after 16 hours of labour and seven stitches with my first child the midwife took her for her vitamin K injection my husband turned around and said to me “Honey, I’m so tired it’s been such a long night”. I replied through gritted teeth: “Yes. I’m pretty tired too, babe”. Trust me, that’s not what I was thinking though.
[Daphne – Hahaha, this is such a universal story. So many women say the same thing. Now I can look back and laugh, but back then laugh is the last thing I’d have wanted to do at the sound of ‘My God, I’m exhausted’.It’s hilarious, really. I think it’s the reason midwives used to send the ‘exhausted’ husband out of the room while they washed the mother immediately after the birth (do they still do that? they used to in my time): “Jekk joghgob stenna barra, sinjur.”]
“(do they still do that? they used to in my time)”
No, or at least they didn’t in our case.
Worse than the husband WANTING to go home because he’s exhausted, is his mother coming to see her baby’s baby and telling her son to go home to rest because he MUST be exhausted …
Sounds familiar?
Some people will do anything to get some media attention.
When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do. When you are in Malta, you have to do what the Maltese do. If you want to do what the Canadians do, David just go back to Canada. Hope the law will take action against all this waste of time and money.
I know both Dave and Marissa and when I read The Times I was suprised that they didn’t mention their ages so I am glad that this was brought up as I happen to think that it is relevant.
There were some comments on The Times article saying Dave (Ellul) thought he knew better than the doctors. For anyone that knows or who has ever met Dave Ellul it’s obvious he thinks he knows better than any doctor. Like someone else said in the comments, the Facebook page was a massive misrepresentation of the ‘support’.
I was added to the page so I’m counted at one of the stats ‘agreeing’ with them. If you look at all the comments on the ‘free baby pea’ page the vast majority supporting them are teenagers themselves. Obviously excluding the devoted posters Luke Darlow or Marissa’s mother.
If the pair wanted better health care than was provided for them for FREE BESIDES NOT PAYING ANY TAX as a failed musician (if you don’t count one gig a Thursday in Bugibba a success) and student then maybe get a job to pay for private.
I would like to make a note – like Dave, I am not Maltese, however I have lived here for years and paid tax. I mention this point only because of the following. On Facebook there are some comments about Baby Pea that aren’t on Dave’s side and some racist ones saying go back to Canada etc. Dave chooses only to publicise the racist ones on his public profile trying to infer that anyone not on his ‘side’ is ignorant.
Ah the sensationalism! It’s a Maltese thing. Also, apparently, a thing exacerbated by Canadian influence. This entire show is the equivalent to that face that kids make, an hour after refusing their lunch, when they’re forced to return to the kitchen and ask mummy for a sandwich because they’re hungry. Thoroughly pouty and sulky.
It strikes me as odd that seeing as how they were astute enough to realize that a home birth wasn’t working and could lead to trouble, they went to the hospital… only to refuse medical treatment? How does that work? I’m pretty sure the labour and maternity wards are as busy as they always are but as is their professional and moral obligation, those with the experience and expertise offered these two ungrateful idiots their services.
Was it a case of ‘Oh you’ve done enough damage by making sure both mother and child survived, thank you very much. You can take your routine and simple tests and shove them up your collective auras. No, our kid is fine. Yes there is blood in her vomit but we have faith that nothing is really wrong’?
These two were so busy adoring their bodies that they forgot that feelings, spirits [the ghostly kind, not the Stolichnaya one] and a healthy digestive tract do not in fact protect them or their unfortunate kid from nasty illnesses or complications.
In an adult, vomiting blood is a sign that something is wrong. In a neonate, even the smallest thing can turn fatal in a ridiculously short amount of time. These people remind me of those religious fanatics that refuse medical treatment because they believe that a)God will cure their kid or b) God sent this illness/injury/condition as some kind of test of their faith and if Junior dies then they were obviously terrible terrible Christians and they deserve what they got. Except it’s not God this time; just a treadmill, Vitamin B supplement and a yoga session.
“spirits [the ghostly kind, not the Stolichnaya one] ”
It is so obvious that he used it to drink, what does he take us for? If you want to disinfect with alcohol you use Everclear or any 100% proof alcohol. Vodka is used to disinfect when there isn’t an alternative.
Oh I thought this was relevant too:
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs161.snc1/6020_245246785290_695395290_8290930_5541036_n.jpg
What a charming man! Pure class.
What a huge mountain has been built out of such a small pea!
Now you will start receiving children’s allowance from our taxes. Therefore for your next child make sure you book a private hospital beforehand so you won’t go through all this hassle again.
What continues to boggle my mind is which journalism school did the Sunday Times person go to, yes media always looks for a story, but this one had cuckoo all over and spilt some. My best guess was a med school wannabe that now has it for MDs not having made it herself – I might be wrong but reading the stuff made me sure she had a complex of some sort, I guess I’ll keep wondering.
Wow isn’t the ‘man’ cool
Dear MarioP, and your huge mountain is hardly a hill. Make sure you pay all your taxes promptly as this family will need them for the next 30 years. I mean the dole and not mean children’s allowance.
Daphne, is there a Facebook site about Baby Pea?
Iva ha, ciccio 2030, forsi tieqaf teqred: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_165812503439395
Darn, in Gozo you have to have a natural labour whether you want it or not. Economies of scale, unfortunately!
Well you definitely helped them achieve what they wanted since you claim that this was all a big publicity stunt and here you are ranting, raging, and responding to opposing comments for hours on end.
You are incredibly rude and clearly uneducated for publicly bringing up intimate details about the parents’ personal lives, which is absolutely none of yours, or anyone else’s, business!
You should be utterly ashamed to call yourself a “journalist” because you’re nothing but pompous and disgustingly biased. I have never read the words of anyone more ignorant.