The Public Hospital Experience (the REST of the story)

The 48 hours following Ridge's birth were probably worse than the actual delivery. At least in my opinion. The nurses continued to give me the gas while they stitched me up and did everything else they do after a baby is born. I passed out for what felt like an hour, but when I looked at the clock it looked like it had only been about 10 minutes. Cody said it was only 1. The rest felt nice though. Everything happened so fast, I was exhausted.

I had a screaming headache, and so did Cody. For as much as I went through, I felt terrible for him. It seemed I had left him traumatized for life. I at least had the gas and was kind of out if it, plus I'm pretty sure my eyes were closed for most of the birth, but he had to be in there watching me scream in pain. It was hard for him to witness. We both threw up that night--me while trying to eat some rice and ham apparently too soon after delivery, Cody as soon as he arrived home that night.

The first night was miserable. I was moved into a postnatal room with five other women. I still had a headache and was so exhausted I couldn't move my body, but I couldn't sleep either. The lights in the room were left on all night and one in particular was glaring in my eyes. Couple that with the nurses coming in to check one of the six of us every hour or more frequently, and no rest was to be had. Did I mention I had to get out of bed and hand crank a handle to lower or raise the bed?
Also, we were merely a number; we were referred to as bed number 54.
I joked with my parents, "I imagine this is somewhat how a foreign prison would feel: laying there in a hard bed with a hard pillow and a foreign language continuously echoing in the background."

Around 11 p.m. I decided to say a prayer. A prayer to thank Heavenly Father for a healthy baby and to bless me to not feel sick and get rid of my headache. Soon thereafter the nurses brought Ridge to me to feed. As soon as I had my baby in my arms, my headache immediately disappeared and I felt a million times better. I just needed to hold and kiss that boy. He is the sweetest thing.

At some point I must have dozed off, because I woke up in a daze to an older lady talking to me. I was so confused for several seconds. I could not make out a single thing she was trying to say to me; I thought to myself, "she may as well be speaking Chinese!" Then I realized she was speaking Chinese. I was so out of it, all I could do was stare at her in confusion. She looked frustrated and left, then came back with a younger nurse that spoke English. She told me to follow her to the showers. I wish I could have taken a picture of the bathrooms because they are what you would imagine when thinking of any ordinary public bathroom: a line up of stalls. The first few were toilets (with no toilet paper), the last couple were showers, with sinks lining the opposite wall. So very private and comfortable for someone who just gave birth. The English speaking nurse left us and I tried to follow the Chinese-speaking nurse's directions commands. She continued to seem irritated that I couldn't understand her.

The difference between the young nurses (the ones about our age) and the older nurses (the next generation or two up) was interesting to me. The young ones were so happy, kind, and caring; the older ones were grumpy, methodical, and detached. For instance, when an older nurse would come to wake me to feed Ridge, she would merely come smack my leg a couple times (mind you I was usually asleep or at least trying to sleep) and bark out, "go to nursery to feed baby." Then she would leave. The young nurses spoke in kind tones and one even asked me if I had a daughter too. She remembered Jade from one of the antenatal appointments. She said, "She likes to dance, right? And she wears a big flower?" Yes, that would be mine.

Nursing Ridge the first night was an arduous task. Like I said, the nurse would come hit my leg to wake me; once I could get my exhausted self out of bed, I walked [slowly] down the hall to the nursery. There we were directed to check our babies' tags (to make sure we were caring for the right one; my 4.095 kg white boy wasn't hard to spot amidst the 2-point-something-kg-Asians), change the baby's diaper, then sit and nurse on hard, plastic chairs. Like the kind you find stacked up at the church. Another place I wish I could have taken a picture: about a dozen women lined up on both sides of the small room, nursing their babies. Honestly, whose bright idea was it to make all these women who just had babies walk down the long hallway and then sit on the hardest possible chairs for 30-60 minutes to feed their newborns? Ouch! In more ways than one. Usually though I would feed for 20 minutes and then snuggle for 40. So sue me. I love that little guy.

This went on every two hours; the nurse would tell me when to come back to feed again and if I didn't wake up, I would get a couple smacks on the leg. By the next day (which started promptly at 7 a.m. when the nurses came in and turned on ALL the lights and threw open ALL the curtains around the beds) I think I had my brain working again, because I finally asked to have Ridge room in with me. My nurses had to get permission from the nursery nurses, but they let me. From then on I had him stay in my room curtain space, so I could have more control over the feedings, not to mention so I could see him as much as possible. [You can tell it had been a rough night.]

Things were muuuuuch better after that. The nurses still came in more frequently than I preferred, asking when I fed, for how long, and "did baby wee wee or poo poo?" (Say that with your best Chinese accent and you can understand why it was hard for me to take them seriously.)

Cody could only come in during visiting hours, which were 12 - 1:30 p.m. and 5:30 - 8 p.m. Boy, did I look forward to that time of day!

He was great at filling my requests in the in between time. Like bringing me a soft pillow and lots of snacks. For breakfast, congee and a bun was served each morning.
Admittedly, I had never tried congee before this. I figured it had to be flavorless, mushy rice, so it couldn't be too bad, right? Wrong. One bite told me the stuff they were serving was flavored with dried seafood. I ate the bun. When the cafeteria lady came back she said, "You no like congee?" I shook my head. "You want milk?" I nodded. Suuure, I'll take some milk. She brought back a warm milk box; I gulped it down with a "fun size" bag of peanut M&Ms I had stashed in my purse. Man, I couldn't wait for what Cody was going to bring me! The next morning I had bagels and bananas for breakfast. As for lunch and dinner, they looked like this:

They really weren't bad though I didn't even bother with the soup. I was grateful I had become pretty accustom to Chinese food by this point. I was also grateful the lunch lady couldn't speak much English. Apparently Cody overheard her barking at one of the Taiwanese patients in Mandarin: "Eat. Stop staring at your baby and eat your lunch!"

We didn't have a computer or Internet at the hospital (I know that comes as a surprise), so this meant Cody had to take the camera home and try to update family and friends as much as possible in between visits. The first night I was dying. I always have my camera on me and now I have this beautiful new baby that I couldn't take pictures of!! I did what any desperate new mom would do and pulled out my camera phone. Gotta love the sleeping bag and hospital dress. :)




The next night I made Cody leave the camera with me. And I took this cute video of my little son when he was waking up to eat around 3 a.m. Especially for the Grandmas.

The remainder of my time in the hospital I tried to hide out in my 6'x10' cell with my boy and try to get as much sleep as possible. During visiting hours I did have a Chinese grandma peak in my curtains **while I was nursing** and ooh and aahh over my big American baby. She didn't seem to mind that I needed a little privacy. I think Cody was down paying our hospital bill when that happened. When he got back he told me, "250 dollars just like that. Easy come, easy go." That is HK$250, US$32. For the entire prenatal care, labor, delivery, postnatal care; everything. No insurance needed. Now we can all understand why the care is what it is.

We soon found out if Ridge and I were healthy, we could leave as soon as he was 48 hours old. You better believe we had our bills paid, paper work completed, bags packed, and were out the door by 5:56 p.m. on Sunday night. There was no escort, no car seat check, and no wheelchair to the door. They just cut off our tags, handed us some papers, and we were on our own. No matter, once we got there, home never felt so good. It had been a long two days, but we were finally free!


Now the big question: would I do it again? No, not if I can possibly help it. But if you ask a slightly different question: if you went back, would you do it over the same way? Yes, I would. I'm too practical. We are not in a position that US$10,000-15,000 for two days in a private hospital is something we want to swallow. On top of that, we were able to pay off Cody's student loans last month (that's less than four years since he graduated)! I like to think I contributed a little to that by saving us so much money. As it was well put in an article my friend blogged about: "Whether or not the stay-at-home mom brings in income, she makes money by saving it. She’s smart, savvy, diligent, contemporary, cool, chic and tired at the end of a long day — a working woman." All those adjectives may not describe me, but I'd like to believe I at least worked hard those two days.