our experience at bc women’s hospital this time with micah was quite different than 3.5 years ago with matia…

dads.
as a husband it’s an incredible experience in itself, watching your wife give birth and realizing why God designed woman to bear this responsibility and not man. i’m whining at the first sign of a cold, never mind passing a… what? holy. are you kidding me? that’s coming out of… ? anyway, you know what i mean. ever since watching those pre-natal class videos from the 70′s before boo’s birth and then getting front row seats as she entered the world, i think every husband should have to watch his wife deliver their child. it wasn’t that long ago when the men would wait in the hallway preparing cigar distribution, right?

nurses.
both times we’ve had incredibly caring and helpful delivery room nurses to guide us through the long hours of contractions and labour. this time i felt more comfortable to lend a hand and help where i could, partly since i kinda knew the process from before. because of our deliveries at BC Women’s i have a new appreciation for delivery nurses (there’s probably a correct term for them) and the role they play in this life-changing experience.

having said that, the post-delivery nurses the first time were no where near as awesome as the ones that took care of us this time. i remember being largely ignored during the time we were in the maternity ward with matia (except when they thought i was a woman). those nurses, who were older than the ones we had this time, all had their own inconsistent advice and insisted on their best way of doing things. that really didn’t help much as first-time parents trying to do our best in a brand new realm.

this time, our charge-nurse the first night went out of her way to make sure we were comfortable and taken care of. we were assigned to a shared room with 4 beds since there were no private rooms available. there was another couple and their newborn already in the room when we arrived. (those curtains between beds really don’t do anything for privacy.) i put our name down for a private room should one become available. a few hours later, the other couple was moved to a private room, and we were left in the large shared room alone. by evening, the charge-nurse suggested i just use the bed beside our’s to sleep in, since they didn’t know when the next family would join our room. she even went and got me sheets and towels. if you’ve ever been through this experience you know it’s like getting a room at the bellagio compared to sleeping on the old fold-out vinyl pads that the husbands use to sleep on the floor with. it’s almost like punishment for having made your wife give birth. needless to say, when you’re only sleeping an hour at a time over 2-3 days this makes a huge difference. so as it turned out, no one ever joined us during our stay and we had the whole room to ourselves. thank you Jesus! the other nurses that cared for us were all very respectful and had great bedside manners, too, and it made such a difference to the overall experience.

doctors.
angie loves her ob/gyn. if you’ve ever been in a conversation with her about anything related to pregnancy or child-birth chances are she’s talked about her amazing ob/gyn. i think she carries his business card to hand out, too. maybe it’s because he has this south-african type accent and is quite handsome? no, but actually, dr. mcdreamy (as he’s referred to) is really good at what he does and from what i understand very respected in his field. i’ve really come to appreciate how important a part he has played in both of angie’s pregnancies and deliveries. it’s still funny for me though, seeing him demonstrate labour pains to us in his office with his hand on his hip and the leaned up against the wall.

having said that, this time the delivery experience was made a thousand times worse largely because of the anesthesiologist who administered the epidural and failed to listen to the feedback. no thanks to him, the labour was probably a few hours longer than it should have been. we found out later that this particular person doesn’t have the best rep in his work either.

hospitals are very interesting places. most people don’t go there unless they have to, and like airports they are just buildings but alive with all sorts of emotions. fear, joy, unknowns, familiarity and everything in-between i suppose. for some even, the place they enter and leave this world. but no matter what your experience within the walls, one thing’s for sure… the parking is freakin’ expensive.