Childbirth Center tour

Last night we went to an open house at the childbirth center at St Mary's, which is where I'll be delivering (provided it's not super quick and happens at home or on the car ride there!). I thought it would be a good idea to do a trial run for how long it took to get there from here, but totally forgot to check what time we left! We meant to do it on the way home too, but totally forgot to check what time we got home! Oh well, it's somewhere around 15 minutes and it's the closest hospital to us.

They started with a Q&A for a while with a panel of some of the nurses, midwives and doctors there. Most of the questions were helpful but there were a few ridiculous ones. My favorite was when this hippie chick asked if she could bring her own perinatal herbal rinse. Jack couldn't quite remember the question later on so he phrased it "Is it ok to bring my own organic soymilk to wash my baby's head with?" When he whispered that to me I started convulsing trying to keep the laughter in. I think this is the same chick that asked if they could bring the placenta home. EW! There was also this annoying kid sitting in front of us sucking on a bird feather, and reaching through the chair to touch my feet. Seems he hasn't learned about personal space, and bird diseases yet.

After the Q&A we got to tour the birth center. It looks great! They have 6 very large rooms where you go through labor, delivery, recovery and receive postpartum care all in the same room. There are only a few times a year that it happens to be crowded enough that they have to double you up in a room. You can keep the baby in the room with you, or if you need some rest you can ask them to take the baby to the nursery. 2 of the rooms have jacuzzi tubs for you to labor in (not for delivery). 1 other room has a birthing pool - we're not interested. But I'm all about laboring in a jacuzzi tub! They said that the record number of visitors they fit in one room (I think during labor) was 27, and they see no need to break that record. We agree. They have wi-fi there! So I can bring the laptop and keep the blog updated on how many centimeters I am... haha. I wonder if they'd let us bring Guitar Hero and hook it up there. That would certainly distract me from labor pains! The security is pretty impressive there too. You have to be let in and out of the birth center. You have to know the Mother's first and last name to be allowed to visit. As soon as the baby is born they get a bracelet with a sensor that sets off an alarm if they're taken off the floor. Mom and Dad get matching bracelets so they're the only ones, aside from staff, allowed to take the baby from the nursery. That should pretty much eliminate the possibility of getting the wrong baby!

After the tour we signed up for their childbirth classes. Jack still has his doubts about their necessity, but everyone I've asked has recommended taking childbirth classes. And we were thrilled to find out we have the magic insurance card - the entire cost is covered by insurance! I guess it better be covered considering how much we shell out for insurance every month! So we start those at the end of August.

They had a rep there from Babies R Us so we got a gift bag and a couple gift certificates, even though we've already registered there. We were only supposed to get one gift certificate, but Jack sweet talked a second one out of the rep. :)

I have another doctor's appointment which includes the glucose screening test tomorrow, so I'll post about that then!