Holy crumbcake. Either the nurse has infra-red vision or the worst judgment in the world. (Or both.)

Holy crumbcake. Either the nurse has infrared vision or the least common sense in the world. (Or both.)

Either the nurse has infrared vision or the least common sense in the world. (Or both.)

Funny, but I thought we had the right to informed refusal. And why was the L&D nurse drawing blood?

Either the nurse has heat-seeking vision or the least common sense in the world. (Or both.)

Funny, but I thought we had the right to informed refusal. And why was the L&D nurse drawing blood?

Not even mentioning how wrong this is…. it would be a good way to get killed by me. I have a phobia of needles. Waking up to one…… my reaction would be involuntary, and NOT NICE. Really stupid move, nurse.

CREEPER!!!
I would have screamed before she could have opened her mouth!!

You NEVER sneak up on people with needles in your hand!!

Ack! Just reading that made my heart jump and my skin crawl. I have to do deep breathing to calm down enough to get any kind of needle stick. I can’t imagine the trauma of waking up to that! I’m sure she was thinking that she would let the mother sleep, and that was nice. But this was NOT the way to do it! Maybe she could have waited until morning to draw the blood if she wanted to let the mom sleep.

I had something similar happen to me after my son was born. The nurses came in in the middle of the night to take blood. I don’t remember if they intentionally woke me up first or not. I do remember being very groggy and unable to really protest when they also decided they’d move my heplock while they were at it. The new spot they picked was very uncomfortable and they refused to take it out or move it in the morning. I’ve gotten much better at advocating for myself since then.

Are you frickin kidding me?! What the frick happened to consent? You’re going to take my bodily fluids and not ask me? I am so pissed right now.
OP, I hope you knocked the needle out of her hand and scared the heck out of her.

It’s so dark did the nurse even read the chart to see if the mother had an objection to blood draws? Some people have religious objections to such practices. I would have smacked the nurse.

This doesn’t even seem like it would work? At least not the majority of the time. Do most patients really sleep right through blood draws?

It might be just me, but isn’t this kind of creepy? My first thought would have been phsycho nurse with a needle in the dark, get the hell out or I’m calling security!

Ive been working my way back through the archives the last few days as I’m new. I have gone trough over 70 pages so far. Some make me laugh, some make me rage. All of them have reaffirmed my desire to be a CNM and stand against the tidal wave of stupid.

This was this first to make me jump and say “GAH!” to my empty room. And I’m not even afraid of needles.

If a nurse doesn’t want consent to remove things from my body, I can only I aging what she’s willing to put into my body without consent. Creepy. I think I’d be checking out AMA at that point.

This is beyond unacceptable! A person has the right to be consulted on anything and everything in regards to their own body. You do NOT get to lay a hand on a person, plain and simple!

Something similar happened to me once. I was sound asleep under the influence of pain meds and sleep aids. I woke up at four in the morning to find a nurse removing my blankets and pulling up my nightgown. Needless to say, I FLIPPED out! She was startled at how angry I was. “I have to give you this shot in your belly and I didn’t want to wake you!” Um, what the hell? I didn’t consent to a shot in my stomach and I sure didn’t consent to you touching me without permission!

OMG this same thing happened to me when I was hospitalized except I was THREE YEARS OLD at the time. Woke up screaming my bloody head off. And now have a fear of hospitals… gee I wonder why? Is that really so common? I thought it was just one bizarro nurse, but I guess not!

Same thing happened to me except VERY different situation.
I was in the cardiac unit for a pulmonary embolism. The night nurse would have to come in very early morning and give me my lovenox (blood thinner) shot. Once my husband was able to get leave to come to the hospital, I was finally able to sleep well. Slept like the dead that first night he arrived. I didn’t respond to the night nurse waking me up. My hubby gave permission for the shot but I was clueless. Sorry for the OP, that must have been creepy.

The nurse definitely should ask permission first – but maybe she does have awesome needle skills (if not people skills). One time (only had it happen one time but it CAN be done) when I was on hospital bed rest, the lab tech did it painlessly. If I had not watched him do it, I would not have known. Of course, he did not sneak up on me.

This is not my story, but I had a similar experience. I woke up in the middle of the night to a needle being put in my arm for a blood draw. My next birth was at home. No needles required!

Er… you don’t draw blood with a syringe. What was in the syringe and why did it need to be administered to a sleeping woman?

“I’m just going to stick something sharp into you while you are sleeping. I don’t care whether you consent and I don’t care to explain what I’m doing. Also, I won’t wake you up with this sharp object because I can do magic! In the dark! ”

Wait till she tries that move on an army vet. Or a needle-phobe. Or somebody who JUUUUUST got to sleep.

I am phobic of the thing in the dark that is trying to kill me.

This would not have gone over well.

I would be thinking Angel Of Death situation.

You Don’t Do This.

There are so many things wrong with this.
1. Patient consent was not obtained for a non emergency procedure.
2. How well is s/he going to be able to perform said procedure in the dark.
3. How is the mother supposed to know that this person is a hospital employee in the dark. What if she thought upon taking that she was being attacked? She would be well within her rights to defend herself.
4. The thought of somebody doing something unwanted to me in my asleep scares the living crap out of me. I most assuredly would NOT have slept through it.

I used to work nights in my previous units and 2am lab draws were a part of life. The doctors wanted the most recent results they could get for their patients when they came in for morning rounds in order to make the most accurate care plan adjustments. Most of us would explain to our patients BEFORE bedtime when to expect labs, meds, or vital signs checks. We would group things together as much as we possibly could to reduce the need to wake our patients, and (if they were alert and oriented) work with their preferences on whether or not to wake them in the night. Many of my patients told me that if I could do what I needed without waking them it was just fine with them, some preferred to be alerted first. If I couldn’t see to do a procedure safely I’d wake them and let them know I needed to turn on a brighter light (but often the bathroom light was enough). Because of this, generally, our patients preferred the nurses and floor techs to do most of their night care. It drove them and us crazy when the phlebotomists or doctors would go into their rooms, because the would usually just bang the door open and flip on the overhead light like it was nothing (and far too many of them would waltz out again leaving the lights blazing and the patient’s bed up in the air – ARG!)

All that to say, I’m really sorry this nurse scared the OP. She should have discussed it with her before bedtime rather than assumed it would be ok. It was thoughtless (and her response sounds defensive), but not likely intended to be creepy or malicious.

I used to work nights in my previous units and 2am lab draws were a part of life. The doctors wanted the most recent results they could get for their patients when they came in for morning rounds in order to make the most accurate care plan adjustments.

Most of us would explain to our patients before bedtime when to expect labs, medications, or vital signs checks. We would group things together as much as we possibly could to reduce the need to wake our patients, and (if they were alert and oriented) work with their preferences on whether or not to wake them in the night. Many of my patients told me that if I could do what I needed without waking them it was just fine with them, some preferred to be alerted first. If I couldn’t see to do a procedure safely I’d wake them and let them know I needed to turn on a brighter light (but often the bathroom light was enough).
Because of this, generally, our patients preferred the nurses and floor techs to do most of their night care. It drove them and us crazy when the phlebotomists or doctors would go into their rooms, because the would usually just bang the door open and flip on the overhead light like it was nothing (and far too many of them would waltz out again leaving the lights blazing and the patient’s bed up in the air – ARG!)

All that to say, I’m really sorry this nurse scared the OP. She should have discussed it with her before bedtime rather than assumed it would be OK. It was thoughtless (and her response sounds defensive), but not likely intended to be creepy or malicious.

And that comment is supposed to somehow make the fact that you were going to poke me with a needle without my consent and while I was asleep BETTER?

Hint: it makes it much, much worse.

I’m not saying what the nurse was the best decision. However, as a nurse myself, I’m guessing she was trying to get blood from a heplock, and not trying to stick her. I worked the night shift in a med surg unit and I dreaded the 4 am blood draws. But I had to do my job. The doctors rounded in the morning and would get ugly with us if they weren’t done, on the other hand, a lot of patients would be just as ugly, yelling at us for waking them up. At the beginning of my shift, I’d give patients the heads up and asked them if it would be okay to draw the blood while they were asleep, no sticking required. A lot of them said yes.

Something very similar happened to me two years ago when I was admitted to the Hospital for dehydration. I woke early in the morning to the woman from the lab leaning over me prepping my arm for a blood draw. I am afraid of needles so immediately pulled back. She stopped what she was doing and began talking to me ect.. well turns out she had the WRONG person. She was supposed to be in the next room over.

I was horrified.

I’d like to ask a question about a related issue.

Let me start out by saying that I have a good relationship with my doctor. He’s a resident. He seems to take my questions and concerns seriously. He made me really happy the other day when I told him on the phone that I’d just gotten a positive pregnancy test. He said, “I’m delivering this month, and I just talked to a midwife, and you are going to have your doula and we are going to do this right!” (I had previously told him that I wanted a NCB and asked him about hiring a doula.)

I asked for a blood test to confirm pregnancy, and he said that he put in the order for that. When I did the blood test, I was a little shocked that the nurse took three vials of blood. “They really need all that blood just for one pregnancy test?” I thought.

I just now noticed that the lab didn’t just take blood for a beta HCG quantity. They also took blood for a CBC, T4, and TSH test.

Is it routine for labs to draw blood for these other tests when a blood pregnancy test is requested? Since all I had asked for was confirmation of pregnancy, shouldn’t my doctor have asked for permission before ordering these other tests? I would have consented; it just bothers me that I wasn’t informed.