Before I go on my little rant-n-rave, I had to share this picture which just kills me on so many different levels. Harry feeding his little brother, with just the barest hint of a smile playing around his mouth and his eyes literally shining with love. OMG.
Okay… where was I? Apparently Friday was “Let’s have a c-section day” here at the hospital. I’m still working on my birth story which will go into a lot of this, but the short of it is that everyone and their brother was having a c-section, or heck, just having babies on Friday. The result? A very full ward. And a ward that wasn’t that big to begin with. They’re building a new hospital tower right next door but in my frank opinion, they should have started that thing years ago because holy moly. Anyhow, the result is very few private post-partum rooms and a vast majority of “semi-private” rooms. Which is just a stupid thing to call them because there’s not really anything private about them. You’re sharing your room. And you better consider yourself darned lucky that you only have one roommate because there are a few that house THREE post-partum women at a time. Yowzers.
Women who deliver via c-section are given preference for a private room, but when it’s a popular day to have a c-section, you can sorta get lost in the shuffle. I was one of those unfortunate people. It took them several hours to just plain secure me a room. Forget a private. So I got a bed in one of these semi-private rooms. These aren’t huge rooms either. With two people occupying, you have enough room for a night-table, a bed and a place for the “sleep-chair” (now there’s a misleading name if I’ve ever heard one) to fold out next to the bed. And that’s about it. There were curtains that separated the halves of the room and shielded you from the doorway. Curtain does not equal soundproof however.
We were roomed with a very nice, very young girl who’d just had an emergency c-section (general anesthesia and all) the night before. The bathroom was on her side of the room and while I didn’t need to concern myself with that for the first 12 hours (hello, catheter!), there did reach a time I needed to get up and use it and I always felt like I was intruding. Forget taking a shower there. I definitely wouldn’t have felt comfortable with that.
We were lucky enough that Kile was not only allowed but expected to stay the night (in the aforementioned “sleep chair”). But this meant, she got someone who could stay the night too. In this case, her rather immature 17-year old boyfriend who was also the baby’s father. She had the baby with her the whole time, which I thought was cool. However, since she was in the same post-op boat I was in, she needed to rely on her boyfriend to help her out with the baby quite a bit. And he, of course, was reluctant to do so so for a good portion of the night, I heard her complaining about him being unwilling to help her with the baby. Since she was a minor, her father could also stay the night and help her take care of the baby so I felt a small rise of satisfaction for her when she told him he could NOT stay another night, she’d have her father stay instead. You go girl.
In the meantime, this guy had a friend over past visiting hours (10pm) and they were talking rather loudly and using not the cleanest of languages. Which, yeah, nothing we haven’t heard before. But not exactly the ideal environment to breastfeed your baby in, you know? I could go on and on, but the short of it is that having a roommate post-partum is for the BIRDS. And all the nurses and doctors felt so bad for us and promised we were on the list to get a private room. I wasn’t going to hold my breath. But this afternoon we were informed we were first on the list and lo and behold, we got our private room. Same size as the old room, but only ONE occupant. Plus a comfy rollaway bed for Kile, a rocking chair, seating for guests and my very own bathroom.
Tomorrow? I’m taking a SHOWER.
This is me. I'm a thirtysomething stay at home mom to three kids. For years I was a stay at home mom to one kid and trying very hard to have more. It took a LONG time (ie: 6 1/2 years), but finally Liam arrived and charmed us with his blue eyes and ginormous, round head. Then we got a shock: I was pregnant again and this time it was a GIRL. Our hearts and home are full at last and now that we're done having babies, we get to relax (snort) and watch them grow (not too fast now, you hear?). Thanks for coming by, feel free to dip into my archives, read my About and History pages (just don't do Jackson's Story without tissues!) and make yourself at home.
