What To Expect At The Hospital
Your due date approaches and you start feeling contractions. A few hours pass and you feel like it’s “time” to pack up and head to the hospital. You’ve called your doula, and plan to meet at the hospital. Your partner loads up the hospital bags, you two get in the car and then you’re off! During the hospital tour, you got familiar with the L&D unit, but it’s the middle of the night now, and you’ll have to enter through the emergency room.
Once you get inside, the ER staff will direct you to the Labor & Delivery unit. Depending on your hospital, you’ll either be admitted to an exam room first, or directly into your birth room.
A nurse will come greet you in the room, and assess your contractions, cervix and your baby’s heartbeat. If they determine that you are indeed in labor, and headed towards active labor, you’ll be moved to a permanent room if you weren’t originally admitted to one.
Now that you’re in your room and preparing for birth, you and your support team can get settled in. The nurse will leave you with a gown to change into, and offer for you to unpack whatever you need from our bag to have it readily available. The nurse will check your vitals, and ask you some general housekeeping questions. You can expect questions like: When was the last time you ate and drank? When is your due date? Has your water broken? How far apart are you feeling contractions? Have you had any vaginal bleeding? How are your baby’s movements? Are you taking any current medications? And she may ask for a copy of your birth plan. If she doesn’t ask for your birth plan, this is the ideal time to give her a copy.
The nurse will use an electronic fetal monitor to listen to your baby’s heartbeat for between 20-30 minutes. She may draw blood to be sent to the lab for evaluation, and she may place a saline lock (this is just precaution so that if necessary, the stage is set for an IV if it’s needed later).
By this time, you should be getting comfortable with your room and your nurse, as you’ve been here for a while now. After completing the admission process, you can expect intermittent monitoring from your nurses. During these next few hours is when you will rely heavily on your support team to get through surges. It’s likely that you may not see your doctor until you are just about ready to push. Keep in mind as well that nurses often change shifts every 12 hours, so if you’re laboring for longer than that, it's probable that you will get a new nurse at some point during labor.
If you arrive at the hospital further along in labor, your baby’s birth takes priority. The admission process will be sped up significantly depending on how close your baby’s arrival is.
