This is a really freakishly long post, so I broke it into parts. "Intro" is just some background about my pregnancy. In "Birthing Place", I describe where I gave birth. "The Birth" is obviously the story of the birth. And "After the Birth" is a recap of my stay in the hospital after birth.
---INTRO---
My son (now 10 months old) was born last spring just outside Zurich, Switzerland.
The pregnancy was relatively uncomplicated, though I did have nausea and vomiting (usually brought on by motion sickness) until about 24 weeks, and around 34 weeks he lodged up under my ribs, resulting in several sleepless nights and a few vomiting incidents (including on the floor of a restaurant before I could run outside!).
---BIRTHING PLACE---
For the birth, we selected a unique hospital. Basically, it is a place run by midwives. There are no doctors there, but rather a list of doctors who have their own practices but deliver and spend a couple hours per week there. So, a pregnant woman who selects the hospital brings in her own doctor for the delivery, and he/she comes in to check on the mother during the "week bed" (not sure if this precise term exists in English, so I translated the German), the 4-6 days a woman spends in the hospital after the birth.
There are a few birthing rooms, complete with a whirlpool, CD players for music during labors, and a lot of other extras I can't really remember. We took a tour quite late in my pregnancy, so I was completely round while some of the women barely had a bump! I felt kind of last-minute, but we were kind of relaxed (um, slow) about everything. We didn't even have furniture until the month before the birth. In our defense, we were in the process of moving.
The hospital is very much pro-natural birthing, though they do have someone there 24/7 to administer anesthesia should the woman request it, as well as a room for c-sections. I decided to try for no drugs if I could possibly do it. I am a total wimp and have a super low pain threshold, but I wanted to try anyway.
The hospital is semi-private, meaning the normal health insurance covers everything, except should the mother wish a private or semi-private room for the recovery period. In that case, she would need supplementary private insurance or pay out of pocket. I had only the basic insurance, and it would have cost like 2000-3000 Francs for this option (even more should a c-section be required), so we just went for the regular general ward option. That's still only a maximum of three women per room, so it wasn't so bad.
---THE BIRTH---
Not only were we so late in selecting a hospital, we also had not even considered a birth course until they mentioned it during the tour. Of course, they were all already full with barely-pregnant women who were more on top of things than I was at 30-something weeks pregnant. So, my husband called around and found us a midwife who would give an hour or two private course for us in English! My Swiss German, well, sucks, though I could have gotten by in High German. Still, English and private was awesome.
I prepared questions, and she showed me some birthing positions and techniques. I had been slowly leaking some watery stuff for a few days, which she suspected was amniotic fluid from a tiny leak. We did the course in the evening of the 29th of April, 1.5 weeks before my due date.
So maybe you can see where this is going... That NIGHT, around 2:30 in the morning, I woke up to pee, and then there was this odd pain. I woke up my husband and told him I thought it might be the beginning of labor, though I was unsure. I eventually decided to take a bath because the pain was intensifying and coming every couple minutes already. The bath did not help at all, and the pain was getting worse.
We were told we could wait an hour after regular contractions began before calling the hospital. By this point, the contractions were super strong and really close together, and my body began to push! I told him to call the hospital NOW. The midwife wanted to talk to me, but I could hardly speak, so she talked to my husband and told him we should come in immediately.
Unfortunately, we did not have a car at this point, as we had sold the old one and the new family-sized vehicle would not come until the fall. So, my husband called a local taxi company, and after what felt like ages, the driver was there. We rushed out with the bag we had packed and jumped into the taxi. I was trying really hard not to push. I didn't want our son born mid-route.
The taxi driver was really cool. He told me to scream as much as I needed to. Apparently, he got called often in the middle of the night to drive laboring women to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital around 4:30 in the morning. We hurried to the birthing room. The midwife had already called my doctor, but he was not there yet. She took a look and saw that my son's head was already crowning, so we bypassed all the laboring equipment and went straight to pushing.
A few pushes later, my impatient son was out. He was born at 4:49, 19 minutes after our arrival at the hospital and under 2.5 hours after my first contraction. While I would have liked to use the birthing pool, bath oils, and music we had brought, I could not have asked for a better birth. It was fast, which allowed wimpy me to get through the pain without any medication.
My husband cut the cord and helped weigh and dress our baby - all of which was done at a table beside my bed - and then the midwife gave me the tiny bundle: 3060 grams (6.7 lbs) in weight and 49 cm (19.3 in) long. My doctor arrived a few minutes later. He had to stitch me up a bit, as I had torn slightly during the birth.
We then had some time to relax and try to breastfeed (which he didn't seem too interested in yet) in the birthing room before we moved to my room for some breakfast. Yummy!
---AFTER THE BIRTH---
I stayed there for four days, and it was awesome! I missed my husband a lot, as he couldn't stay with me in the general ward, but he visited for a few hours each day. The hospital was pro-breastfeeding, so the nurses helped me a lot with that. My son was really impatient when hungry and got very upset when he couldn't latch on, so I was constantly beeping the nurses for help. There was a nurse who was the main nurse for a set of rooms, and then kept the other shift nurses up-to-date on the progress of the mothers and babies.
My son slept in a bassinet on wheels next to me, and he was always with me (mothers could request the nurse to take a baby for a bit if they needed a rest). Breastfeeding pillows were supplied, and we learned a variety of positions. At night, when my son ate the most, I put him in the bed with me and fed him lying down on my side.
Every morning, I wheeled him into the common bathing/changing room to weigh him for the day and mark that down on his chart. I also was supposed to note his feeding times, including duration and which side(s). It was very organized!
A couple days into my stay, the nurse showed me and my husband how to bath our baby. She was really great, especially patient with my initial ineptitude at changing a diaper or even dressing a baby (I was afraid to hurt him!). What really stood out there, though, was how willing everyone was when it came to breastfeeding assistance. I must have annoyed them to no end with the constant beeping for help, but they were always patient.
At the end of the fourth day, we bundled our son up into his wrap (they called in a midwife to show us how to use the wrap), and my husband carried him as we walked down to the train station and rode home.
---INTRO---
My son (now 10 months old) was born last spring just outside Zurich, Switzerland.
The pregnancy was relatively uncomplicated, though I did have nausea and vomiting (usually brought on by motion sickness) until about 24 weeks, and around 34 weeks he lodged up under my ribs, resulting in several sleepless nights and a few vomiting incidents (including on the floor of a restaurant before I could run outside!).
---BIRTHING PLACE---
For the birth, we selected a unique hospital. Basically, it is a place run by midwives. There are no doctors there, but rather a list of doctors who have their own practices but deliver and spend a couple hours per week there. So, a pregnant woman who selects the hospital brings in her own doctor for the delivery, and he/she comes in to check on the mother during the "week bed" (not sure if this precise term exists in English, so I translated the German), the 4-6 days a woman spends in the hospital after the birth.
There are a few birthing rooms, complete with a whirlpool, CD players for music during labors, and a lot of other extras I can't really remember. We took a tour quite late in my pregnancy, so I was completely round while some of the women barely had a bump! I felt kind of last-minute, but we were kind of relaxed (um, slow) about everything. We didn't even have furniture until the month before the birth. In our defense, we were in the process of moving.
The hospital is very much pro-natural birthing, though they do have someone there 24/7 to administer anesthesia should the woman request it, as well as a room for c-sections. I decided to try for no drugs if I could possibly do it. I am a total wimp and have a super low pain threshold, but I wanted to try anyway.
The hospital is semi-private, meaning the normal health insurance covers everything, except should the mother wish a private or semi-private room for the recovery period. In that case, she would need supplementary private insurance or pay out of pocket. I had only the basic insurance, and it would have cost like 2000-3000 Francs for this option (even more should a c-section be required), so we just went for the regular general ward option. That's still only a maximum of three women per room, so it wasn't so bad.
---THE BIRTH---
Not only were we so late in selecting a hospital, we also had not even considered a birth course until they mentioned it during the tour. Of course, they were all already full with barely-pregnant women who were more on top of things than I was at 30-something weeks pregnant. So, my husband called around and found us a midwife who would give an hour or two private course for us in English! My Swiss German, well, sucks, though I could have gotten by in High German. Still, English and private was awesome.
I prepared questions, and she showed me some birthing positions and techniques. I had been slowly leaking some watery stuff for a few days, which she suspected was amniotic fluid from a tiny leak. We did the course in the evening of the 29th of April, 1.5 weeks before my due date.
So maybe you can see where this is going... That NIGHT, around 2:30 in the morning, I woke up to pee, and then there was this odd pain. I woke up my husband and told him I thought it might be the beginning of labor, though I was unsure. I eventually decided to take a bath because the pain was intensifying and coming every couple minutes already. The bath did not help at all, and the pain was getting worse.
We were told we could wait an hour after regular contractions began before calling the hospital. By this point, the contractions were super strong and really close together, and my body began to push! I told him to call the hospital NOW. The midwife wanted to talk to me, but I could hardly speak, so she talked to my husband and told him we should come in immediately.
Unfortunately, we did not have a car at this point, as we had sold the old one and the new family-sized vehicle would not come until the fall. So, my husband called a local taxi company, and after what felt like ages, the driver was there. We rushed out with the bag we had packed and jumped into the taxi. I was trying really hard not to push. I didn't want our son born mid-route.
The taxi driver was really cool. He told me to scream as much as I needed to. Apparently, he got called often in the middle of the night to drive laboring women to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital around 4:30 in the morning. We hurried to the birthing room. The midwife had already called my doctor, but he was not there yet. She took a look and saw that my son's head was already crowning, so we bypassed all the laboring equipment and went straight to pushing.
A few pushes later, my impatient son was out. He was born at 4:49, 19 minutes after our arrival at the hospital and under 2.5 hours after my first contraction. While I would have liked to use the birthing pool, bath oils, and music we had brought, I could not have asked for a better birth. It was fast, which allowed wimpy me to get through the pain without any medication.
My husband cut the cord and helped weigh and dress our baby - all of which was done at a table beside my bed - and then the midwife gave me the tiny bundle: 3060 grams (6.7 lbs) in weight and 49 cm (19.3 in) long. My doctor arrived a few minutes later. He had to stitch me up a bit, as I had torn slightly during the birth.
We then had some time to relax and try to breastfeed (which he didn't seem too interested in yet) in the birthing room before we moved to my room for some breakfast. Yummy!
---AFTER THE BIRTH---
I stayed there for four days, and it was awesome! I missed my husband a lot, as he couldn't stay with me in the general ward, but he visited for a few hours each day. The hospital was pro-breastfeeding, so the nurses helped me a lot with that. My son was really impatient when hungry and got very upset when he couldn't latch on, so I was constantly beeping the nurses for help. There was a nurse who was the main nurse for a set of rooms, and then kept the other shift nurses up-to-date on the progress of the mothers and babies.
My son slept in a bassinet on wheels next to me, and he was always with me (mothers could request the nurse to take a baby for a bit if they needed a rest). Breastfeeding pillows were supplied, and we learned a variety of positions. At night, when my son ate the most, I put him in the bed with me and fed him lying down on my side.
Every morning, I wheeled him into the common bathing/changing room to weigh him for the day and mark that down on his chart. I also was supposed to note his feeding times, including duration and which side(s). It was very organized!
A couple days into my stay, the nurse showed me and my husband how to bath our baby. She was really great, especially patient with my initial ineptitude at changing a diaper or even dressing a baby (I was afraid to hurt him!). What really stood out there, though, was how willing everyone was when it came to breastfeeding assistance. I must have annoyed them to no end with the constant beeping for help, but they were always patient.
At the end of the fourth day, we bundled our son up into his wrap (they called in a midwife to show us how to use the wrap), and my husband carried him as we walked down to the train station and rode home.
That way you will know what to do...
