L & D Tour...

Blaker2012

My DH is resisting the tour idea, he thinks it will be a waste of time and that we are paying our Dr. enough money to answer the questions we have. For those of you who have been on your tour, what things did you learn/see? Will these things be of benefit to your actual experience? Really, am I missing anything by not doing this?

kesolomon

We did ours a few weeks ago. It was free of charge. To me it helped my nerves of knowing where to go and what the rooms look like...the L&D and the post delivery rooms. Plus you get to see the nursery. They also gave us papers to fill out to have ready when you do come to the hospital so you can just hand the papers over. I found it helpful and mind easing.  

Andreabks

ours is a "late pregnancy" class first then the tour.  as our tour was of a new facility we'd never been to, it was nice to know where all we would be.  start to finish i'll see at least 3 rooms (triage, delivery, recovery) all on different floors of the facility. 

It was also nice to see the rooms to help decide who all is getting called at which point. and who's staying.  the triage and recovery rooms are small (but private) verses the acutall delivery rooms which were really large.

MrsLuWho

Ambsies:

I really enjoyed our tour.  They told us the best place to park, how to get in after hours, we got to see the L&D rooms and the hospital rooms.  I really liked seeing everything- it made the whole thing a lot less mysterious.

Same here for us last time. I loved the tour and so did DH. My water broke at home, so it was so nice knowing exactly where to go and what to do. I think had we not figured it all out we would have been much more stressed out and panicked.

Blaker2012

Thanks ladies for the responses. Something else I should add, I live in a tiny town (pop 15,000), so the hospital is small and parking is not an issue. Also, I was admitted to L & D at 20 weeks due to some complications. My DH just feels with having that experience we already figured out how to get there, where to go and what it looks like. I don't know if it is something worth pushing for, since I kind of agree with him but I also see your points, especially in that it could just calm my nerves. Just torn with the idea, but also realize it isn't actually that big of a deal either way, this LO is coming whether we do it or not! If any of you think of other reasons why we should or shouldn't do it, please let me know. Thanks again!

sdlaura

Blaker2012:

Thanks ladies for the responses. Something else I should add, I live in a tiny town (pop 15,000), so the hospital is small and parking is not an issue. Also, I was admitted to L & D at 20 weeks due to some complications. My DH just feels with having that experience we already figured out how to get there, where to go and what it looks like. I don't know if it is something worth pushing for, since I kind of agree with him but I also see your points, especially in that it could just calm my nerves. Just torn with the idea, but also realize it isn't actually that big of a deal either way, this LO is coming whether we do it or not! If any of you think of other reasons why we should or shouldn't do it, please let me know. Thanks again!

Why not just go to the tour on your own if you think it could help calm your nerves, but he doesn't feel that he needs it?

kelnyc

L12541:

Blaker2012:

Thanks ladies for the responses. Something else I should add, I live in a tiny town (pop 15,000), so the hospital is small and parking is not an issue. Also, I was admitted to L & D at 20 weeks due to some complications. My DH just feels with having that experience we already figured out how to get there, where to go and what it looks like. I don't know if it is something worth pushing for, since I kind of agree with him but I also see your points, especially in that it could just calm my nerves. Just torn with the idea, but also realize it isn't actually that big of a deal either way, this LO is coming whether we do it or not! If any of you think of other reasons why we should or shouldn't do it, please let me know. Thanks again!

Why not just go to the tour on your own if you think it could help calm your nerves, but he doesn't feel that he needs it?

This. And really, how much time out of your lives would in take?

VolFanRN

Ambsies:

I really enjoyed our tour.  They told us the best place to park, how to get in after hours, we got to see the L&D rooms and the hospital rooms.  I really liked seeing everything- it made the whole thing a lot less mysterious.

I agree with this. Especially since this is our first it really helped to "visualize" where all this was going to happen.

Mrs_Bennett

Ambsies:

I really enjoyed our tour.  They told us the best place to park, how to get in after hours, we got to see the L&D rooms and the hospital rooms.  I really liked seeing everything- it made the whole thing a lot less mysterious.

All of this exactly.  I was so nervous about L&D, so I think it really helped that I at least knew what kind of room I'd be in.  It made it at least a little familiar when we finally arrived, rather than everything being strange and new.  I think it's worth taking the tour, even if you do it without your DH since you're the one who really will care about what's in the rooms (Let's face it, he'll just sit there and wait for hours--you'll be doing all the work!). 

punkrockabye

Ours was free and started with a 45 minute powerpoint and Q&A session, followed by the actual tour. All of my questions were answered before I had a chance to ask them, including some questions I didn't know I had. DH and I both really wanted to go and really enjoyed it. I am a huge worrier and while I know it's hard to plan for L&D, I wanted to know what my surroundings would look like, what the process would be, and what I can basically expect. I have horrible anxiety in new situations and I like to run through possible scenarios in my head (probably a bad thing) so it definitely helps knowing that I know what everything looks like. I hadn't actually been in the women's hospital area of our hospital, so I didn't know there was a whole other entrance that we can pull right up to. It's a HUGE trek from the main entrance to the women's hospital, so the whole way back there I was thinking about how ridiculous it was!