I've been trying to come up with a more clever title to this post and haven't been able to. There's just no other way to put it. After being told by numerous people how great LDS Hospital is, I have to respectfully disagree.
Max was supposed to be born (at least Jana was supposed to be induced) on Monday the 17th. But because the hospital was "full" they couldn't schedule us until Wednesday the 19th. Okay, no big deal. I only have a miserably pregnant wife with crazy hormones who's been gearing up to this one day circled on the calendar for months. We'll just go in first thing Wednesday morning.
When I called Wednesday morning I was told "Sorry. We're not going to be able to fit you in until the afternoon." So we dropped Luke off at Grandmas and finally saw The Simpson's Movie, which on a sidenote was quite funny. After the movie I called the hospital again. "We're still not ready for you. Go see a movie or something." "I just saw a movie," I explained. "Well, go see another one." So back in to the theatre we went and saw The Bourne Supremacy. On a side note - another good flick. Nearly 3 hours and another phone call later, I get the old "Don't call us, we'll call you" routine. At this point Jana was in tears. Would we ever get in?
Finally Thursday at 5:30 a.m. our phone rings and they're ready for us. It reminded me of the scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry goes to the doctor with an appointment only to be seen after the person who had a later appointment because it was first-come first-served. If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about. My point is, what's the purpose of having an appointment if you can't honor it?
So things went pretty well until Jana was in enough pain to request the epidural. "Sorry, the anesthesiologist is in with an emergency c-section. It could be awhile," the nurse explained. Is it just me, but shouldn't a hospital this size in the middle of the day on a weekday have more than one anesthesiologist? So nearly an hour of unplanned excruciating pain later, she got her epidural.
Okay, no big deal. You're reading this post and you don't have much sympathy for us. That's fine, because all of this to this point seems reasonably understandable.
But finally Max was born. What a miracle. It was an awesome experience that we felt would never arrive. After holding him for a few minutes they took him to the nursery. I followed the nurse and when Max had a good temperature she encouraged, actually pretty much told me to take him to our room. You see, there were probably 5 or 6 other babies who had been born within a few minutes of Max. They had their hands full. Understandable.
So I take him to our room and we enjoy him for almost 4 hours before a nurse finally comes in and says "Okay, we're ready to get your baby's weight and length now. Oh, and we also have to give him a shot right away because it was supposed to have been given within an hour of birth." It had been nearly 4 hours! We didn't even know our baby's weight!
So I followed the nurse back to the nursery. Making casual conversation on the way I said something to the effect of "September is probably a busy time for you guys." "No, it's always this way," she said with a straight face.
In the meantime, I requested a cot to sleep on because the recliner in our room was broken and didn't recline. More than 2 hours and probably 5 requests later they told me they're out of cots. To their credit, about an hour later (about 2 a.m.) they found one for me.
The next morning Jana was in a lot of pain and requested some pain medication. 52 minutes later her nurse came in with her medication.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that yes, if anything were to have gone wrong we were probably at the right place. LDS Hospital is equipped and ready. But if everything goes well, LDS Hospital sucks. When we had Max at Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful it felt like we were the only ones there. We had constant attention and love. At LDS, we were neglected and ignored. But hey, I have a healthy cute baby so what am I complaining about?
2 comments:
That's the way it was for Gretta in New Mexico when we had Emmie. Hospitals have unfortunately become businesses, and if they can "get by" with paying as few nurses as possible, that's what they'll do. Money first, patient second. On a brighter note, we had a wonderful experience at Davis Hospital.
This is good news, that's where Kate and I are going to deliver- Davis Hospital
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