Its jess me - You make a good point and I never thought about it that way. I haven't thought much of this process through yet, but my gut reaction was that this is OUR baby, not MY baby. But yes, rest is important, as is the comfort of a roommate. I was strictly thinking in terms of moral support. The letter said that the baby was permitted to stay with the mother, but not the father. In my mind, we are a trio, not a pair. I've been lucky to never have had to stay at a hospital, and this is just not the image that I've seen on TV! So its all a bit shocking to me.

I called Pennsy directly on Monday. They confirmed renovations were starting this week and lasting 2 years. Also confirmed that it is only double rooms and dads have to leave at 8pm and can't return until 11am.

Is it 2 years for Preston or the whole hospital? I was there yesterday and it seemed like the whole building was under renovations.

Thank you for not being defensive - I really was just presenting another point of view and I appreciate your seeing my intentions.

To me and to my husband, it absolutely was *our* baby. But that doesn't mean the type of attention we gave it was equal - I was nursing after all, and I was the one who had actually given birth. My husband gave in many other ways - being there throughout the labor, and then holding down the fort at home. For our first, this meant he called everyone and sent out announcements, plus since we're pretty superstitious we had NO baby stuff in the house, so he went to Babies R Us and bought everything we needed. I can't imagine him doing that on no or uncomfortable sleep. (For our second child, his support involved taking care of our first!).

He wasn't going to get up during the night to nurse the baby, so I didn't see what benefit there was to any of us for him to be there. I don't think I would have slept as well with him in the room either.

Everyone needs to do what's right for them, but think about how your husband's role in the trio works best for all of you.

My husband did not stay over for either of mine for pretty much the same reasons- he is also a not so charming snorer.....
I am more concerneed about getting a cheese steak eating chatting roomie after major surgery- Lakenau is looking more and more attractive.

Banaba- I know where you are coming from! Before I was moved to a private room, I had a Burger King- beltching roomate and guests.

To represent the view of having your husband with you while in the hospital...

My husband was with me for our entire stay with both our children. I can't imagine him not being there not just for moral support and to share the early hours of joy with the new baby, but he also took care me and our babies. In most hospitals the nurses are understaffed and overworked and can't provide all the care that is needed for both mother and baby. It was nice to have him there as own personal nurse to take care of the baby while I recovered and to help take care of me when I needed it.

We'll be at HUP for our third in September, and I'm already crossing my fingers for a single room.

When I delivered my twins at Pennsy, I got a double room and my husband was sent home for the night. We were both really upset about it- I had gotten very little help from the nurses, had not yet been seen by a lactation consultant, and of course had no idea what I was doing! But he went home and I stayed up the entire night with my brand new babies, trying to get them to nurse, looking at them, cuddling with them. A nurse looked in once or twice but I felt very much on my own. I had a roommate and could hear her baby crying. Although this was NOT what I had planned for and not what I wanted, my first night as a mother turned out to be an incredible, surreal, and very meaningful experience that I will never forget.

(That said- I would definitely have preferred a single room, and for him to stay! I ended up leaving the hospital before the doctors wanted me to, because I needed more help at night than I was getting from the staff.)

I delivered at Pennsylvania last week. I had been quite irritated to get the letter from the hospital about the renovations, since it arrived about 2 weeks before my due date. Switching hospitals or providers simply wasn't an option at that point!

First, the positive. As with my first birth, the nursing care was phenomenal. Couldn't have asked for more - both in L&D and in postpartum.

Fortunately, things weren't too busy when I went into labor, so after my PETU assessment, they moved me right into a delivery room. After birth, they were very respectful of my wish for nonseparation and an L&D nurse did the baby's bath and assessment right in the room, then we went to the postpartum room together.

I did have a roommate, as expected. To be fair, with my first birth, I had a roommate too. Poor thing had some problems and had to be moved into a telemetry unit. Of course, being in a shared room, I heard EVERYTHING about her situation - couldn't help it since the only choice would have been leaving the room, which was not an option given that I'd delivered 4 hours previously. Struck me as a huge violation of her privacy.

I then had a private room for a good 36 hours. They moved another woman into my room on my last night and that was irritating. It was the middle of the night (2:00 am) and she had to go through all of her check in procedures. She also had her baby in the room and the baby was a squealer. Nothing wrong with that, except that I was struggling to get sleep (I forgot how many times you get interrupted in a hospital). Plus, honestly, it is one thing for your own kid to wake you in the middle of the night, but pretty annoying to be woken by someone else's kid. Couldn't really be mad -- newborns cry, duh, but, you know what I mean.

Fortunately, I left pretty early the next day.

So, all in all, a 1/2 good, 1/2 bad experience. Again, even without the renovations, I'm not sure I would have had a private room. (With my first son, they told me privates were reserved for c-sections.) But, if we were going to have another baby (which we aren't), I would definitely go to a hospital with private rooms -- even given the advantage of Pennsylvania's convenience, the quality of the nursing care, and the quality of the NICU (which, fortunately, we didn't need this time.)

Argh it's so frustrating that we must give something up here. Great NICU, great nurses, close by, but both the laborist system and double rooms both me. I could handle going to a suburban hospital if it were just that, but I can't drive out and back to 20 OB appointments also.
So both Penn and HUP are laborist. My OB said she thinks Jeff has had a laborist system for a while already. Hahnemann doesn't take BCBS anymore.... I thought living in the city was supposed to bring more options, this feels like less.