We met up with in the Lobby with eight or so other prego couples and listened to a 'talk thru'.
Some observations; in this session and other prep sessions at the same hosptial, everyone of the total of 20 - 30 couples has been white and between 25 - 40+ year old. A little surprising in that the local populace is at least 30% Mexican American or minority and we've seen soom younger parents.
Maybe its the fact that that I think the Hospital is tied to corporate HMOs and PPOs. Don't really know enough about the local health system to know if folks without Healthcare go to other Hospitals; but just interesting to observe that so far, we all 'look alike'.
The younger couples seem a little more anxious and more inclined to be comforting each other as the they learn about what they are about to go through. Though, at the same time, it also seems that most couples have read enough on the Internet and from books that whatever they have to tell/teach you, you've already read about it before.
Scripps has what they call a 'baby friendly' philosophy that is a good fit for what we are looking for.
After the baby is born, they don't wisk him/her off to a nursery, the baby stays with you in the delivery room and with you when they shuffle you down the hall to a post-partem recovery room.
The delevery ward is just off the main entrance to the Hospital and not connected to the Emergancy Room entance. It's security controlled so that you can only get in if your connected to a family having a baby. The babies get an ankle braclet that has an alarm that goes off if anyone tries to leave the ward with the baby so the prospect of abuctions is not something we'll have to worry about.
The delivery rooms have basinets and sinks where they can bathe the baby so they keep the baby in the room while they clean up after-birth, apply eye-drops and give the vitamin K shot. Also, we've learned from class videos that the baby usually is fully awake for about two hours after the birth and that they will accommodate our desire to have the baby spend those first two hours direcly with Tanya (and me) before he/she is expected to go to sleep for pretty much the balance of day one.
They have four delivery rooms and eight post-partem recovery rooms. The recovery rooms are set up for two moms - though it looks like you usually have the recovery room to yourself. If they have a 'rush' the post-partem rooms can also be used for delivery rooms.
We were only able to see one of the recovery rooms as the delivery rooms and seven of the recovery rooms were in use today.
If a caesarean is required, they have a surgery room in the same ward, so your basically in the same small section of the hospital for that event as well.
The rooms are pretty plain and 'hospitally', so though you can hang out for 48 hours post-partem for natural birth and 72 hours for caesareans, I think we will want to head home pretty much asap.
Were only a few people in the hallways attending for current births. Was one young guy that looked a little freaked out and I imagine he was in the 'waiting stage' and perhaps was not ready to be 'in the room'. Thinking, I'll be pretty anxious myself, but that I'll have no problems 'being in the room' as events progress.
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