Some Notes on Delivering at Magee

The Lamaze class instructor will tell you all sorts of things to be prepared for your delivery at Magee hospital. Many of these turned out to be false, false lies!

To start, she said there'd be popsicles. Since they don't let you have food while you do the hardest work of your life, I was glad to know I could at least have popsicles. I mean, it's July. Everyone needs popsicles. When I first got into triage and learned that, despite my contractions coming every 2 minutes, I was only 1cm dilated, the midwife asked if there was anything I needed. "POPSICLES!" I told her, very calmly amidst a big one.

About an hour later, she reappeared with a smooshed, 23-yr old orange popsicle and a cup. "This is all I could find..." It was at the bottom of the freezer, broken, but I ate it anyway dammit. When you actually get to your labor/delivery/recovery room, you can order popsicles from room service, but this takes 45 minutes and they get weird when you want 15 of them. Note to others: Bring your own popsicles.

The instructor also told us there would be "everything you need" for a good shower. I took this to mean soap, shampoo, and towels. Possibly a bath mat. They have only soap. When my little sister wanted to give me a sponge bath in my post-partum room, she asked the nurses for toiletries and towels. They gave her a handful of washcloth-sized scouring pads and some J&J baby soap that was meant to double as soap and shampoo for me. We ended up drying me off with those super-absorbant hospital gowns and then having to wait around for a dry one of those to emerge.

There were other wee lies that were less annoying, like that I'd get a water bottle or other ammenities. But so much of my labor experience revolved around the shower and wanting to consume calories that I felt it prudent to make known that Magee does not, in fact, specialize in frozen treats or spa towels.