2003-08-05 - 12:20 p.m. - Cycle day: 36 weeks, 2 days

We took our first hospital tour last night. I saw the other mamas' due dates on the sign-in sheet and felt even more like a slacker - they were all due around November/December. The tour guide kept saying that they'd pull our pre-admission sheets to process about six weeks before our due dates, and I was all "Um, we're less than four weeks from ours." But oh well.

The hospital we toured is a brand new women's facility annexed off of our major local hospital. I have to admit, for a hospital, it's beautiful. There's a big marble fountain in the lobby, and everything's nicely and warmly decorated. The Husband was especially impressed by the rooms, although I can't help but focus on the wires and monitors and handrails, even when there's lovely cherry cabinets and brushed nickel hardware.

This hospital has three different stages of delivery rooms - assessment, labor/delivery, and post-partum. There wasn't much difference between the L&D room and the post-partum ones, other than size. The L&D room seemed a little cramped to me, especially when I visualized a birth ball or yoga mat in there. There will be at least three adults in there most of the time, and sometimes as many as six, so that makes maneuverability all the more important. It's clearly set up for the "lie in bed and have a baby" method of delivery. For reasons I can't fathom (other than the obvious expense), they built this gorgeous new maternity ward without any bath tubs, so the only hydrotherapy option is the hand-shower in the bathroom. The L&D rooms did have TVs, VCRs, and CD/cassette stereos, but no refrigerators or microwaves (which I guess makes sense - they don't want the patients in there eating anyway).

The post-partum room was a little bigger, and had a sofa that could convert into a twin size bed. Still no fridge, though. The tour guide did say that most babies room-in with their mothers, and that many of the perinatal testing could happen in the patient room rather than the nursery, so that was nice to hear. One of the couples gasped when she mentioned that most moms leave after about 24 hours. I'd actually asked Dr. Hippie the other day what his usual maternity stay was, because I wanted the option of leaving as early as possible. (Me: "I've never stayed in a hospital before." Him: "Have you stayed in a hotel?" My inner voice: "Yes, and I wouldn't want to have a baby there, either.") He said that he liked to have the baby as an inpatient for 24 hours because there's a vaccination or something that they prefer to do within 12-24 hours, so staying at the hospital saves a trip to his office, but beyond that, it's up to me and how I feel. Now it looks like that's about the max time they'd let me stay, regardless.

Tomorrow is my next OB appointment. I emailed Dr. Hippie a copy of my birth plan and let him know that the doula would be joining us tomorrow. He wrote back promptly and said the plan looks good and that he looks forward to seeing us all. It's really nice to have his support. I felt so bad for the other women in pre-natal yoga or our childbirth ed class who had to fight their doctors every inch of the way to get what they wanted, or else just gave up and resigned themselves to someone else's plan for their birth. Dr. Hippie has been so amenable to our requests (although sometimes we have to remind him what those are - he asked us last week who our pediatrician was, and we were all "Um, you said you would be?") Anyway, after tomorrow's appointment, we're planning to head over to the other hospital and check things out. They do individual tours, so I may be less shy about asking questions (I didn't want to freak out the other couples last night by asking things like "Are the nurses trained to support the perineum during the pushing stage?")

Oh, on a sidenote, my weekly pregnancy update email said that, by the end of this week, I'll be considered full term. Can I get a HOLY CRAP!?

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