Hospitals: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Our Punkin was born on a rainy Memorial Day weekend at our local hospital. Giving birth is both a joyous and scary thing all rolled into one. Giving birth and knowing that you will be placing your child for adoption adds another layer of stress to the equation.

We left for the hospital in a panic and a rush. Pack anything? Oh heck, I didn’t remember anything. Things I wish I had packed were a good bra, pajamas, personal care items, my own pillow and a journal to write down all of my feelings. It is humiliating to have to ask for a toothbrush and a comb so you don’t look disheveled. My partner could have brought them for me, but he was working 12-hour days at the time and the last thing on my mind was personal care when he was with me. I just needed to be held and hear jokes and talk about light hearted stuff.

for California

Our son was born after 8 hours in labor and a c-section. He was a big boy, weighing in at 13 pounds 8 ounces. He had red hair, his daddy’s chin, my nose and eyes, a heart defect and a swollen liver and spleen. I saw him twice, once without my glasses so I may as well not have seen him at all, and once for about two minutes in the incubator on the way out the door for the ambulance. He was flown to a regional medical center with a NICU that was better equipped to handle his illnesses.

Being in the hospital without a child to take care of and an adoption plan in the making is a difficult thing. The hospital we were at handles very few births involving an adoption so they really didn’t know how to be helpful to me. There was one nurse who was an adoptive mom who was fantastic. I was feeling an enormous amount of guilt for not being able to keep together my family, which is what a mom is supposed to do, and she helped me see that sometimes we have to do things to preserve ourselves and that doing that isn’t something to feel guilty about.

I wanted to breastfeed, and would have had Punkin stayed with me, in fact I would have had him room-in with me. I was determined to be his mommy while I had a chance. The nurses assumed that I wouldn’t want to do those things, given the chance. I think they were scared that I would bond too much to with him. Well, I was already bonded with him; I had sung to him, talked to him, read him stories and loved him the whole time I was pregnant. I couldn’t bond much more than I already had. Standing up for myself became paramount. My son’s pediatrician was hesitant to share information for the same reason. I think she assumed that I would just want to wash my hands of Punkin because I wasn’t able to parent him. That was the furthest from the truth. I needed to know what was going on with him, and I was his only mother at the time after all.

We chose not to contact an agency until after our baby was born because we wanted to be able to make our choice about placing without the pressure of disappointing a hopeful couple. We were pretty set in what would do, but still wanted the freedom to take our baby home without hurting someone else deeply. The nurses at the hospital assumed that because the hospital was affiliated with a certain faith, that I would be using their social services for placement as well. At the time they thought they decided this for me, I was in a lot of pain from labor and upset because our baby didn’t want to be born. I later found out from a hospital social worker that I could use whichever agency I chose and she actually called that agency for me and put me in touch with an awesome social worker who helped us with our adoption plan and managing our son’s health care.