Birthing Center Tour

So yesterday I dropped by the hospital at work. I wanted to settle some conflicting pieces of information that we had obtained this week. We found out that our insurance will not allow us to deliver at the Hospital where our doctor works. For those of you who are Canadian, you probably will be confused by this statement. It's not so strange really, as our doctor should be able to deliver the baby at whatever hospital we choose. At any rate, we were looking into the hospital near my work and found that they had a birthing center, but signs around the hospital say "No Labor and Delivery Services." So I went to investigate. It turned out that the birthing center is brand new and they would be open for business starting Sept. 12. It also happened that they were having an open house that day to celebrate the new facility. So I called Melissa to get her to come to see it with me.

This place is great! Melissa is totally sold on giving birth there. First thing we saw was the delivery room. The place was huge and very private. There is a big "baby admission" center that allows them to do everything that needs to be done to the baby after it has arrived. Stuff like weighing, bathing, categorizing, labeling, etc. It has a heater over the station so the baby doesn't get cold, although I'm sure making the transition from a constant 98 to room temperature has got to be traumatic despite that. Apparently the heater can be moved over the mother for breastfeeding as well. The actual delivery section of the room is impressive as well. The first thing that was demonstrated was the great light positioning system that they have. The lights are recessed into the ceiling and are controlled by a remote control. The nurse can point the remote control at any place on the bed and the lights will move to hit that spot. It was really cool! The room is also outfitted with a state of the art entertainment system: plasma TV and DVD player! The picture was very good, I was impressed. The couch/dad bed looked reasonable, but not something you'd want to spend much time on. Melissa was also interested in the bathroom, which is playing an increasingly larger role in her life these days. It was pretty big, with a nice big tub for birthing if that helps. All of the lights in the room can be controlled from the bed, although the controls looked pretty complicated. Picture something like the captain's chair from Star Trek with stirrups. I think I'll have to be in charge of that. The final touch to the room was the included rocking (feeding) chair. These things are the best thing about babies as far as I can tell, I can't wait to get ours (both the baby and the chair).

The post-partum rooms are pretty similar to the delivery rooms, with a more comfy bed for mommy. We also got to see the OR which looked like they could do open heart surgery in it (the nurses made a point of this as the tour was mostly for them). Everything was really fancy, and all the people there looked like they were really looking forward to working there. By the time we deliver they should have everything worked out. Now all we have to do is convince the doctor to drive all the way out to Aurora to deliver our baby. We were really excited about it all yesterday. I think if we could we'd have the baby now. Oh well we just have to wait. In the meantime, I'll start picking out the DVDs to bring with us.