In which we survive mandatory class #1

Ok, not so much a class but the first of our 20+ hours of mandatory hospital tours, childbirth classes, lactation classes, newborn classes, liability disclaimer classes - gots to love NYC.

Quick thoughts:

- Either a. the 19 or so other women on the tour were all dreading this as much as me and waited until the last possible minute to do the tour or b. they are all getting to eat far more ice cream and cake and yummy food than me. Except for the barely pregnant woman, my bump was definitely the smallest. Oh, and basically everyone else took a bottle of the free juice offered. Me and one other woman looked on miserably as they had apple or orange juice (I will have both with my long-waited vodka in 2009).

- I do not want to share a hospital post-partum room with any of those women. One poor woman from the bedrest floor came on the tour in a wheelchair and nobody bothered to hold a door for her, hold the elevator, acknowledge her in any way. And she looked miserable as the tour leader kept waiting for 'those in the rear' rather than acknowledging that she was in a hospital wheelchair.

- NYC is such a problem. This is one of the very ritziest hospitals in the city. And yet, if you give birth after the 8 pm end of visiting hours, your partner gets an hour to bond with the baby before being sent home until 10 am. Brilliant.

- It was also apparent from the elevator ride out that the woman around us considered us the young/immature/'oops' couple in the crowd. Ok, so I was basically in sweatpants because I'd been at my desk working all day (I don't interact with any other students/faculty on a standard day) and JD had been home all day cleaning up the apartment. But really? Just because you're in your fancy suits and taking very detailed notes about things like whether your partner can stay overnight (no), whether you can stay as long as you want in the hospital post-birth (no), whether you can have a natural birth with multiples (no), whether you can eat in L and D (no) ... -you get the idea-.... doesn't mean that the slightly skeptical less-enthusiastic younger-looking couple really are just a bunch of sloths. And no, don't bother taking the tour leader's list of approved midwives when you are clearly in your 3rd trimester. I am still on the waiting list for 11 midwife practice groups and have been there since week 9 and nobody's calling ...

- Anyway, the hospital's fine and I'll survive L and D if the birthing center bounces us. And they would prefer to treat my GD (if it exists) with IV sugar rather than let me eat. Surprisingly, the only thing I have a really big problem with is the quasi-mandatory 48-hour stay post-birth if you're in L and D. The problem is the shared room with very restricted visiting hours for JD. The woman did admit it was possible to seek an early discharge with your doctor and pediatrician's approval, but she seemed very skeptical. It just seems like a total recipe for disaster to leave me for 12 hours at a time to care for a newborn when I will presumably be tired (and certainly grumpy) and to make me share a room on a loud, crowded hallway with another post-partum woman and her newborn. And of course, you can't restrict her family from visiting during visiting hours and all the rooms we walked past tonight had multiples strollers parked outside (as in, women were having their entire extended family including toddlers, etc. over to visit during visiting hours). So I guess I'll call and confirm that our (most-haphazardly) chosen pediatrician will approve an early discharge.