labor & delivery, ny style

I'll just apologize right up front here because there may be a number of long blog postings regarding the whole hospital/labor & delivery experience because it was so crazy. I generally don't like long postings and try to avoid them myself, so sorry. If you don't like it, stop reading!

I suppose if you want to compare a NYC delivery with a SLC delivery, you should think Comfort Inn versus a stay at the Marriott (unless you pay $400 per night for the private room). That probably is completely unfair to New York as there were many things about my experience here that I preferred to Salt Lake. We arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am for a scheduled induction and waited and waited and waited until we finally got a room about 12:00 noon. Now this seems like a dreadfully long period of time, but it was actually quite entertaining. People in NY are LOUD, so I could pick the most interesting of the many conversations taking place and listen in. It was kind of like watching a soap opera or made for television drama. Let me introduce some of the players:

Yuppie Couple
Wealthy Entitled White Couple
He's Got to be Gay Drama Queen Husband but Can't be Because He's Here With His Wife About to Have a Baby and His Teenage Son Couple (seriously, the kid stayed all day...to watch, I guess)
Party of Five Couple
Party of Six Couple
Wheelchair Woman & Super Hungry Stuffing His Face Husband Couple
Packed for a Month Couple
Seriously in Labor Couple (this woman needs a room like yesterday, but she got a chair)
I Think They Might be in Our Ward Couple

There were several more, but these are the most memorable. The triage staff was terrible, and the place was packed. I thought it was odd, but people came with a whole crew of visitors from family to friends to possibly even neighbors and coworkers who were there for the entire event to help/watch. Weird! It was just David and I, thank heavens! At one point I considered asking for my pager/buzzer like thing (you know, like the one you get at restaurants) so I could go walk around the mall while I waited for an available table-I mean, bed. There were like only two nurses who were actually working and not just yacking about their personal lives. As an induction, I'm like the bottom of the rapidly increasing list. Finally we get a room and a nurse, then another nurse, and another nurse. My doctor comes in and informs us we almost got sent home but she went to bat for us and said I had to have the baby today so they could do surgery on my broken arm (not exactly true) and that my arm was excruciatingly painful and this baby had to be born today (it hasn't hurt for weeks). Thank heavens for Dr. Holland! Her other induction got sent home.

I'll spare you the details on the delivery for the most part as those that know, know, and those that don't know, probably don't want to know. The pitocin got the ball rolling as it is inclined to. There was some consternation over where to put the blood pressure cuff as the broken arm was a bad idea and so was the IV line arm. They considered the leg for a bit but decided to go with the broken arm for a bit and then switched to the IV line arm for the rest when it didn't need to be taken so frequently. I got myself an epidural from a resident or fellow (yikes!) as I have an excruciatingly painful broken arm and nothing to prove. My last nurse admitted that I was referred to as "the arm lady." That was fairly obvious as every single person who came in referred to it and asked how it happened. It got me some serious sympathy points. My nurse was great. The doctor was fabulous. We chatted about the doctor's daughter's upcoming wedding-quite amusing. We did some pushing and had a baby.

Stay tuned for the next episode of labor and delivery, ny style, post delivery...