Hospital Tour

This past Sunday, we went to the hospital for a tour. After running around a bit to find the classroom, we joined a huge group of people there for the tour. We missed the first half of the "presentation", but still got some valuable information. Then we were off to see the Labor and Delivery floor and rooms.

I had a wheelchair. Yeah! :) When I had signed us up, I requested a wheelchair since I'm on bedrest. I think some of the other moms-to-be were a little jealous. Hahaha... ;)

The hospital was really cool! It's a hospital that has been around for a while, but they have recently built a new wing, and are in the process of renovating the rest of the building. Nice! First we went up and looked at the standard recovery room, and then one of the upgrade suites. Nice, typical hospital room. Poor Tim... the bed/couch/cot looks like it'll be a little small.

Then we headed up a floor to the Labor and delivery area. We went into one of the LDR rooms and our "tour guide" (who was pregnant herself) told us how things would typically go. I guess she also teaches childbirthing classes, and she recommended that once you arrive at the hospital, try and stay off your back (and out of the bed) for as long as possible. She recommended leaning against the bed, or using a birthing ball, or just walking around the room a bit... she told us that the belly monitors had really long cords attached to them, so unless you had an epidural already administered to you, you should try and stay up and about. (Hmmm... as she talked, I got the feeling that she would be a "natural" birther...)

She also went over the "rules" of the hospital (i.e. only 3 guests can be in the delivery room with you), how the nurse-patient situation would work (i.e. one patient per nurse...if you don't "click" with the nurse, request another one), and what exactly might happen after you've given birth (i.e. you can request to hold the baby immediately after birth, or you can have them clean it up first).

As we walked down the hall back to the elevator, we could hear some lady moaning out. :P Ick. hahaha... At one point, we paused in the hallway and a nurse came out of an LDR room. Tim looked in and said he saw a lady with her legs up and everyone surrounding her. He was like, "Woah, I want to watch." hahaha...so maybe he WON't faint. :)

Just before leaving, I asked the tour-guide-lady some questions. She was pregnant with her third child, and her first two did come naturally (w/o an epidural). She said she just used a "wait and see how I feel" stance, and decided that her contractions (aka "birthing waves") weren't too bad, and so declined the use of the epidural. She told us that once we got to the hospital, the nurses would most likely automatically start prepping for an epi, but that we should let them know that I want to "wait and see", or whatever.

As we were leaving, I ran into a coworker of mine who's wife just gave birth (via c-section) to twins that past Wednesday.

I brought my camera...but OBVIOUSLY forgot to take a pic of me in the wheelchair. Darn! Tim says we'll get a picture later. :) it would have been a good one, though...we both had some nasty bedhead.