Back to the Jonah story. Yes, this week too.
The Portland Hospital is a very fancy place to have a baby. An international and jet-set crowd passes through it, eschewing the government-funded NHS healthcare system. This was all unbeknown to me nine+ months ago when my consultant (aka ob/gyn) told me that is where she delivers (her patients are mostly expats with private health insurance). I am sort of a yes-man when it comes to dictates from doctors. What do I know.
Fast-forward to June and there we were in the fancy hospital. Private room, en suite bathroom (they love the term “en suite” over here and so do I), midwives coming in every five seconds to teach me every thing I could ever want to know about caring for a newborn and breastfeeding. My first sponge bath. Hello. A “room service” menu for me to order my three meals a day- choices that were restaurant-caliber. Five luxurious days. Well, somewhat luxurious considering I had surgery and we had an infant to care for. When we transferred rooms Bryan started complaining that the flat-screen tv in the second room wasn’t as big as the first. Foolish boy. It was never turned on the whole time. When we left, one of the many staff members that dress for hotel work rather than hospital work, brought us a gift bag that included champagne and Molton Brown products. Oh and then there was that photo shoot…
But this is not me bragging. The whole thing was surreal and hilarious to me too. As Summer said it, I will be so depressed to ever have a baby in the states. But more important than the conditions, five days in the hospital gave us a bit of a coc0on to nest in. No real world, no traffic or noise or annoyances. Just happiness and lots of firsts for Jonah. Including his first visitors.
visitors
