Both this time and last, we did midwifery group practice - where you get a mw early on in pg, and she does the majority of appts, the birth and 6wks follow-up care afterwards - you give birth in the birth centre, and the idea is to be out within 24hours.
Last time, however, that didn't go according to plan - DD came out a bit flat and with a huge, huge swelling on the front of her head (mw said later that it was the worst she had ever seen, even with vacum or forceps and we had neither). So, anyway, because of the swelling, and problems bf'ing, the hospital wanted to keep us in a bit longer, so we stayed 2 nights.
I was public, and was in a shared room with one other woman - it wasn't too bad, apart from one time when she seemed to have a whole mothers group visit at once! The food was good, and the mw's, well some were good, some not so good - i found that the ones who were hospital employed were better than the agency mw's (and I've heard some bad stories about agency nurses at private hosps too so its not just a public thing!).
I hadn't thought to pack a book or magazines but I was bored when DH wasn't there, so if you do plan on staying in a few days, take something to keep you enternained.
This time, I'm hoping that I'll be home within the 24 hours - although I'll see how I feel - if I have another long labour, and I'm exhausted, I might ask to stay in for a bit longer to catch up on some sleep before I head home to my full-on DD, who will be 22months when this one pops out.
As for visitors - when DH sent the "we've had a baby" text, he also added that we'll let everyone know when we're ready for visitors - for the most part, this was respected, so we'll do the same, especially if we go home early.
HI girls.. well I think I might be a minority here but I'm going to stay in hospital as long as I can stand... with my second DS I stayed in for 5 days! I'll will have to play it by ear but I think I'm gonna need that hospital time to sleep and take it easy... as soon as I get back home I'm back into mum role (which is fine) but I just think I need a couple of days to catch up on sleep and do nothing but feed!
At least then when I get home I'll be rested up and good to go!!
With DD I was in 5 days. I thought I wanted to be in for at least 3 but I was so wrong. For reasons I couldn't do anything about I ended up in another hospital with 4 ladies on the ward and just could not sleep at all the entire time I was there - I was therefore a wreck, and cried every night when DH had to leave. This time I'm hoping to get my nice birth-centred based single room hospital if no complications and am not sure how long I'll stay but think I will miss DD too much for it to be more than one night, if I have to go to the other one again I will leave the minimum 6 hours after birth if I can.
Yeah I should have said too, I was at John Flynn and had my own room which made a huge difference... I'm not sure how I'd be if I had to sleep with other ladies and babies!! ? The lady in the room next to me had a baby that screamed 20 hours a day and even just hearing that through the wall was enough!
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