#maternityward

A tender innocent young life tragically brought to an end just as it was beginning by another barbaric war crime of a terrorist state. 🇺🇦💔💙💛🥲🇺🇦

#Repost @ukraine.ua with @use.repost

. . .

Serhii did not live long enough to be given a birth certificate 😢 His short 2-day-life was cynically taken by a Russian missile, which crashed into the hospital’s maternity ward in Vilniansk, near Zaporizhzhia.

👶 440 children have been killed, and 851 have been injured since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.

📷 @heidi_levine for @washingtonpost

admission.

When I last left off, I had just arrived at the hospital where I would remain inpatient for as long as I possibly could. John and I rolled my suitcase and carried my belongings to the labor and delivery wing of the hospital. When they first saw me, they thought we were in the wrong place. It looked like I had packed for a vacation and that I was looking to check into my hotel room. Once they realized that i was being admitted, everyone was very welcoming. I don’t know if it was the fact that my face was blotchy with tears, redness, and whatever makeup had streamed down my face or the just the fact that I was in a less than desirable situation, but it seemed like everyone I came into contact with was doing everything they could to be upbeat and make me comfortable (which was very much appreciated). They had me change into a gown and placed me in one of the labor and delivery rooms. The plan was for them to get vitals on me and the baby, and then once we were both stable, they would send me over to the maternity ward where my actual room would be. The baby had other plans. 

the stressful non-stress test.

The doctors and nurses strapped me to a fetal doppler, which is basically a round disk attached to your belly with a few straps. It measures the baby’s heart rate for a test called the NST (non-stress test). As I’ve mentioned before, I had a home doppler, so I was pretty familiar with where to find the baby and what I should be listening for. At first, they couldn’t find the baby’s heart beat, which of course panicked me. Then, when they did find it, the baby would only stay in one place for a few minutes at a time. The point of a NST is to measure the baby’s heart rate for twenty minutes straight and make sure that there are appropriate accels and decels. Accels are when the baby’s heart rate speeds up, and decels are when the heart rate slows down. The doctors wanted to make sure that the baby’s heart rate increased when he or she was moving and decreased when he or she was resting. Of course, this is impossible to measure when the baby is darting around your uterus like they’re trying not to get stung by a bee. 

To add to the stress of the non-stress test (ironic, huh?), I was told that the baby’s heart rate was too high, which could be caused by dehydration. Therefore, I was hooked up to IV fluids which made me feel like I needed to pee every five minutes. However, for a NST, you are not supposed to move until the baby’s heart rate has been recorded for twenty minutes straight. So, there I was, strapped to a hospital bed with a full bladder, unable to move for twenty minutes at a time, nothing to do but listen to the thumping of the baby’s heart rate and pray that he or she would cooperate. Whenever twenty minutes were up, nurses would come in to check the print out of the test, which basically showed the baby’s activity level and corresponding heart rate. Each time they checked it, it would either show that the baby would not stop moving for the entire time (typical Connor) or that the baby had moved out of range of the doppler, and they didn’t have enough data. Either way, it meant that the test had to be redone. And redone again. And again. All. Night. Long. The tests started at 10 PM, and I was finally allowed to go to sleep at 5 AM. Somewhere around 1 AM, I told John to just head home. There was no point in both of us suffering. Even when I was allowed to go to sleep, I was still being pumped with fluids, so I had to get up and roll the IV pole with me every five minutes to get to the bathroom. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep that night. 

This picture was taken at 4:50 AM that night/morning. 

maternity ward.

The next morning at 7 AM, I was greeted by some residents who were to perform a BPP on me. A BPP is a biophysical profile on the baby - it measures things like amniotic fluid, heart rate, whether the baby is practicing breathing, whether there’s movement, and a few other things. The highest score you can get on a BPP is 10. Anything above 8 means your baby is healthy. Our score was a 7 because of the low amniotic fluid and persistent-absent blood flow in the umbilical cord. The good news was that the baby was moving and practicing breathing - all good signs. 

A few hours later, I was finally allowed to be transferred to the maternity ward, which was where I would be staying indefinitely. The downside of the maternity ward was that I would have a roommate, and that roommate could have a newborn with them. I remember becoming extremely emotional once i got settled into my bed in the maternity ward. I was on the left side of the room, so I didn’t even have a window to look out. The thought of spending weeks and weeks stuck in that bed, in that room, away from home made me physically ill. Tears welled in my eyes and the nurse checked in with me, and she could tell that I was about to lose it. It didn’t help that I was already exhausted from the night before. She told me “I know, I know - it’s hard” in the most comforting voice she could muster. My family members kept asking me why I was crying, and I couldn’t even explain it. It was just this feeling of hormones, exhaustion, homesickness, anxiety, and dread of what was to come. I remember when John had gone home that night, he sent me a picture of our dog, Guinness, and I just wept. I wanted to be home with them. 

To make matters worse, when the doctor came in earlier that day, he said in a jovial tone, “Get comfy! This is your home for the next couple of weeks!” He meant it in the friendliest way possible, but to me it felt like he was telling me I was being sent to prison. Thankfully, all of the nurses and staff members were so friendly and so uplifting. My family was amazing, doing the best they could to stay with me as often as possible. Despite all that, I was still in misery. 

When I delivered Safa back in 2012, I was still working in IBM and got to reap the benefit of having my maternity partially covered by the insurance. In terms of admission, it was not a planned one as we rushed ourselves to the ER (after I had bad bouts of vomiting and diarrhea) and was wheeled up to the labor room, just to find that I was already 4cm dilated, at 35w6d.

5 years later, with Saif, things are different. I am no longer working and the hospital bills are entirely covered by Le Esposo. Admission wise, I had an elective cesarean so we had a date and time on when we should come and check in. 

So, this post is mainly to share some tips we learned from our latest experience at the hospital, especially if you are Self Paying.

THE CHECK-IN

Depends on your scheduled operation, go to the Admission and Discharge counter, along with:

Admission Letter from your doctor

Patient’s ID

Credit card, bank draft OR cash 

A deposit will be collected upon admission, based on the estimated costs your attending doctor put on your Admission Letter (also depending on the type of case and room requested). Once settled, a porter will show you to your room where you will be welcomed by nurses at the ward, and get you prepped for the Operating Theater (or labor). 

Shahrin filling in some forms eg. consent form, patient’s medical history etc while I was getting my blood drawn and dressed for the operation.

THE IN-BETWEEN(S)

Since you are already spending a substantial amount of dough for the professional services fee (ie obstetrician, anesthesiologist, pediatrician etc), for every surgical appliances used in the OT, for boarding and also for medications, why not save some cash by packing these items with you for your hospital stay:

For mommy:

Large disposable/ mesh panties

Maternity pads

Large wet wipes

For baby:

Diapers

Baby wipes

Baby oil

Do tell the ward nurses up front that you would like to use your own stuff. You can easily save around RM200 if not more. Why not, right? 

Parking

You will receive an in-patient label at the Admission counter, which is to be presented to the Parking Management Office at level B2 along with your parking ticket, and pay a flat rate of RM10/ day throughout your hospitalization. Normal rates can be found here.

Alternatively, there is a parking bay right across the hospital for RM5/ day. It is a walking distance, not to worry. 

Food 

Other than what you can find in the hospital itself, our go-to place to get cheap food nearby is at Ampang Point; Cozy Corner, McDonalds, KFC to name a few. Or you can go to Kg Baru for variety of “goreng-goreng” options, TAPAK, or worst case, the most convenient option of all - Foodpanda or delivery. Easy peasy!

Do read this pamphlet for more information on visiting hours and other general guide.

THE CHECK-OUT

The process of discharging is much faster if you are Self-Paying, for sure!

Payment

If you are footing the bill yourself, you can make payment either via:

Cash 

Credit card

Bank draft

Initially we wanted to use our debit card since we do not possessed any credit cards anymore since last year, in effort to be more financially independent. Heh. Problem with your debit card is (ours is Maybank Visa Debit), the maximum daily purchase limit is RM5,000, and RM10,000 if you have a fancy card like the Mastercard Platinum Debit. Which is insufficient. Lucky for us, Shahrin has a supplementary card (for desperately emergency cases) and suffice to say, the limit is as high as the sky. Credit to MIL for having good credit scores!

Personal cheques are NOT accepted though, we checked.

Discharge Process

Ward nurses will prepare a Discharge Slip for you once the bill is ready.

Head over to Admission and Discharge counter to make payment.

Receive release notice stamped on the Discharge Slip.

Retrieve your medication from the pharmacy.

Hand over the Discharge Slip to the ward nurses.

Pack up your bags and go home!