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Natural Birth
apansey87
member
STM+s - Essentials for delivery/first 3 days
apansey87
member
We are planning on having a natural waterbirth at a birthing center that is now 3+ hours from where we live (we moved in the middle of my pregnancy, and none of the local option are even remotely close to what we want). We will be traveling and staying in the city we are birthing for the birth and roughly 3 days post-partum. We plan to stay at a local hotel, which is also about 10 minutes from my parents so we will have extra support if necessary.
Obviously, due to the circumstances, we need to be pretty "on the ball" with having bags packed and ensuring we have everything we want/need for when our baby girl arrives and the following days. All the packing lists I find are geared towards hospitals, but we will only be at the center roughly 8 hours after birth and then we are on our own. What items did you find most helpful at your birth, and what were the things you found most helpful those first few days? We are planning on bringing her pack n play for her to sleep rather than one from the hotel and maybe the bouncer?
We will be relatively close to a Target, Walmart, etc if we run out of or forget something for the post partum stay, but I would prefer to have everything on hand.
Any advice would be appreciated! TIA
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Re: STM+s - Essentials for delivery/first 3 days
If you're nursing, all you really need is a place for the baby to sleep, your nursing supplies (bras, pads, boppy, etc.), clothes/blankets for baby, and your diapers. In terms of your care, does the birthing center provide you with your postpartum care items? If not, I would make sure to buy some pads or depends for the first day, and then overnight size pads for the next few days. Mesh panties are nice and you can order them online, but you could also just get some larger cheapie undies. Other things are sort of dependent on how your delivery goes. You could always send your DH to Target if you need things like Tucks pads, ice packs, heating pads, or anything else for aches and pains. It may be nice to have some OTC pain meds on hand in case you need them and also have a thermometer with you to check both your and baby's temperature periodically to make sure there are no signs of infection/fever.
My only concern with you being in a hotel is food. Hopefully the hotel you have chosen has good room service with lots of nutritious foods. That actually might be kind of nice for you to be able to just pick up a phone and have food at your door
I would look at it as a little babymoon. You and DH can just snuggle in the bed with your baby and watch some movies while people bring you food. Sounds lovely!
ITA with all of this! I would also suggest letting the hotel know that you will be there with a baby, because they might try and put guests in rooms that aren't too close to yours. I traveled from Boston to Milwaukee when my son was six months old, and he woke up crying frequently through the night. I heard a LOT of complaining about it in the breakfast room the next morning, and I felt badly.
As far as things to bring, I think adamwife had some great suggestions. The first couple of days after my son was born, I went through about 283729732983 bottles of water (I was thirsty ALL the time), so you might want to have bottled water or vitamin water there for you.
Not to sound doomsday-ish, but I think I would pack a "just in case I go to the hospital" bag so you wouldn't need to go re-buy everything. Things like extra jammies, socks, etc.
I liked having extra clothes around (things are messy at first!), advil, water, snacky foods, my own pillow and blankets, slippers/socks, maybe some sort of bathrobe?
You also might not want to use a pack and play with your baby, so I'd get a room with a king-size bed, too. hth and good luck!
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)
Thanks for the responses! I was hoping I wasn't overlooking anything major
As for the when we'll start driving, I will be in contact with my midwives. I am not the first long distance mom they have had, so they have some experience. Staying at my Christian birthing center was very important to me, and thankfully my husband supported that and has made every effort to make this arrangement work. To date I have not had a single Braxton hicks contraction, so if I suddenly start feeling something I will be paying close attention. If worse came to worse and it was false labor, we'd just go back home. In our new area, the closest birthing center was still over an hour and a half away and in Miami-Dade, and in the event of a transfer given the C-section rates at some of those hospitals that's the last place I'd want to be. Our only other option here is a home birth, and that's not something I am really comfortable with at this point in time. I think that more than likely time is on my side as far as the travel, but there are hospitals between point A and point B.