Friday 3 July 2009

Half n Half

"I miss the hospital!"

I have said it about a million times in the past 5 weeks. I cried both times with both babies. You go from having 'round the clock nurses and doctors at your beck and call, and 24 hours room service (Nothing like scrambled eggs and toast with a strawberry shake at 3 in the morning!!) to being back in your house with a pile of laundry and dirty dishes staring at you.

Now, I happen to have THE BEST NEIGHBORS in the world who cleaned my ENTIRE HOUSE while I was in the hospital having Jackson. (We're talking even toilets people.....they even turned down my bed for me!!!) So that was about the best thing in the world to come home to a CLEAN house.....

I will always say that the scariest day of my life was the day we brought Madeline home. I was beyond nervous and still in lots of pain from my C-Section. Plus I was like "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO WITH A NEWBORN!" The first nights with both babies were terrible - they only slept 10-15 minutes at a time.....

In the hospital you have people seeming to trip over themselves to help you. With both children we had a special nurse who went out of their way to really look out for us. I was breastfeeding like crazy so I was ordering food every two hours - movies on demand - people visiting - a nursery to send the baby to so we could get a 3 hours stretch of sleep.....then - HOME! no help, no nursery, and you can have food any time of day but you have to cook it yourself and worse - clean up the dishes.

I decided there should be a "halfway house" for new parents. After you leave the hospital (and really, should they boot you out after 2 days???? come ON - you just GAVE BIRTH!!) you go to this like....apartment complex. There's a nurse or two on staff that you can meet with, there's food made for you and your family - but you have more space and you can come and go - like your own little condo. You could still send your baby to a nursery for a few hour break if you need it, but yet you'd have your "own" space to live in. It wouldn't be as scary as being back home with NO medical professionals around and all of your chores piling up around you... Who WOULDN"T take advantage of that??

The tough part would be selling the idea to insurance..... sigh....

2 comments:

Jenny said...

I have to say, I don't agree. But I might if I had the kiddos who only slept 10-15 min. at a time. Then I'd be singing your song. :-) Hoping it gets better for you and SOON.

I'm still trying to sell home birth to the insurance companies. Yeah, right.

Anonymous said...

lol my homebirthing friend.....well just imagine you had someone come to your home and cook and clean up for me and having someone there to answer all of your questions.....