The Dirt on Pregnancy Weblog

We toured the second hospital and still have not made a decision to where we should deliver. I’m more confident with Hospital 1 and their ability to take care of me and the baby should something go wrong but Hospital 2 seems more capable of supporting us through a natural delivery. Hospital 1 has a labor tub that can be rented for $200 and set up in the room, and Hospital 2 has 2 rooms that have a jacuzzi bathtub in the bathroom of the room that, if available, are free. There is no guarantee that either the tub or jacuzzi will be available when I arrive to deliver, but the labor tub, in my opinion, has a better chance of being available since it is reserved and it brought into the room as apposed to coming with a room. Hospital #2 has bigger rooms and better sleeping arrangements for my husband. They are both about the same distance from our house and my OB delivers at both places. Hospital 2 also has the labor, delivery and recovery all in the same room and Hospital 1 has a separate room for recovery so we would have to change rooms after the baby is born. Honestly, people say how nice it is to not have to move rooms once you’re there but I kind of think it would be nice to move to a new, clean room to bond with the baby in recovery. I guess it doesn’t mater to me, I’ll be wheeled around and won’t have to actually do any unpacking and packing…that will be my husband’s job.  I guess I need to decide how important the tub/jacuzzi is to me because if it is really important, I think we should go with hospital 1 but if it isn’t, than we should go with hospital 2 because I think overall, it’s mission and birth philosophy is more in line with our birth wishes. But then again, we hired our Doula to help us get our natural birth wishes and be an extra experienced advocate for us so it shouldn’t matter where we are. Oh, and the whole labor in warm water thing isn’t even a definite. Some doctors don’t want their mom in the water after their water has broken and some patients don’t get to the hospital in time to use it because by the time the tub is filled up, they are ready to push. Decisions, Decisions…

We have our last monthly appointment with our OB tomorrow so I’m going to ask him if he has a preference of hospital at which to deliver or has a recommendation to where he thinks we will be more comfortable.