Hospital Essentials: What to Pack When You're Having a Baby

A friend recently asked for my packing list for going to the hospital (to have a baby). So I decided to make it a little cuter than a plain old list.

I had a crazy long packing list when I was pregnant. I searched tons of blogs and websites for the ultimate list. Since my husband was going to be deployed when I gave birth, I didn't want to forget a single thing!

What I Didn't Need:
But it turned out that I brought a lot of really unneeded things. Of course, everybody is different and has their own preferences... Though I have always loved makeup and playing around with it and getting dolled up, during the last few months of my pregnancy I hardly wore it. So I thought for sure I would do the whole shebang after my boy was born when I was getting ready to come home. False. I was breastfeeding practically every hour, and sleeping a lot. I did a little bit of makeup - tinted chapstick and mascara.

Here Comes Baby Boy! - The Birth Story

Almost 2 months after my baby boy was born, I'm finally writing his birth story. And now scrambling to find my birth notes that my doula gave me... (in reality, I'm calling my husband to find them for me cause I have a baby sleeping on my chest, in the Moby Wrap (which I will write about in more detail later).

Found it!

So if you are only interested in the general picture of my birth, read the short version, which I have here first. If, however, you are interested in the details and specifics, read my novel (aka, the long version), which follows the short version. :)

Short version:
March 14, my due date, I woke up at 4:00am to find my water had broken. 4:30ish I felt my first contraction. I labored at our apartment until 9:00am and arrived at the hospital around 9:50. (Only a 15 minute drive, but it took a while to get down the stairs and out to the car). The nurses were shocked to find I was already completely dilated, and after forcing my feet into stirrups and repeatedly trying (and failing) to get an IV into me, my son was born at 10:31am. The nurses, having forgotten that I had not received an epidural, jabbed me in the leg with a needle to give me pitocin (without my permission), and my doctor then informed me that she was stitching me up from the episiotomy she'd given me (again without my permission and without me even knowing what she was doing). Then another nurse dumped cold water all over me "down there" - to which I shouted "ahh" to. (She then asked, "what?!" to which I told her it was cold and she then said she'd forgotten I hadn't had an epidural). My boy crawled to the breast and began nursing on his own within the hour. Because my husband was deployed, my mom flew out and arrived around 6:00pm.

Read on for the long version...

Birth Preferences (infographic)

This will be a short post...
I am not going to go into the details of creating a birth plan and choosing what to put on it right now. I just wanted to share a Birth Prefrences infographic that I just created on Easel.ly
I had created my birth "plan" (which is what they're usually called, but you can't always plan for everything and I know you may not get what you plan for... so I use the term loosely) on a word document, nicely typed with a friendly introduction ("We are so excited to be birthing our baby at Mission Hospital!" etc) before going into my bulleted requests for my labor and delivery. My husband did help create it and then our doula looked over it as well to give her suggestions.
Though I still plan to use my typed one, I saw a cute infographic-style birth plan on pinterest (that you could have someone personalize for you on Etsy for $10) and just had to make my own!

Here is the one you can have made for you on Etsy:

And here is the one I made! I actually made two... one with my contact info on it and this one here, which has no name or contact info (for sharing online... don't need my phone number floating around the cyber-universe!) I'm not sure if I will actually use it, but I was bored and enjoy playing around creating different things like this.

 

Happy to hear your thoughts on it!

Thanks for reading!


UPDATE 3/1/14

I edited my birth preferences infographic to be a little more printer-friendly (less color).
There's an open space at the bottom below the feet, that is where I put my name and contact information.

Doulas - Who? What? Why?

I had heard of doulas before - but wasn't sure what they were or what they did. I got them confused with midwives and thought it was just someone only women having home births had to help them. Then, I came upon the term again in my reading, which I have done a lot of at this point.

So... what is a doula? A doula is trained to provide emotional and physical support to women during childbirth. Doulas do not perform medical tasks, unlike midwives - some of whom have nursing degrees.  Though I originally associated doulas with homebirths, some sources actually say that it's more important to have a doula for hospital births.