Childbirth
As I'm a very healthy guy, I've not been in hospitals much other than to visit people. However, as with many of us here, I spent a bit of time in there while my children were born.

The most memorable one was my middle child. It was a very long labor, and he had mecomium besides. They gave her pitocin to induce a stronger labor after about 18 hours of labor, so instead of the Birthing Center we had planned on originally with its double bed and comfortable space for the father to stay in, she was shuffled off to Labor and Delivery in the main hospital.

I spent about 14 hours sitting in one of those godawful tubular steel hard plastic bucket chairs. I was in my twenties at the time, but even so my back and legs and ass were incredibly sore by the time my son's head was starting to emerge. I was there to watch him come forth, and I cut the umbilical cord, and after all was said and done we got a pizza- and by then it was about 11:00 at night. I had been awake for almost 36 hours at that point, when the nursing staff told me that visiting hours were long over with and I had to leave.

I remember that I stared at her in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? There's a massive snowstorm out there and I've been awake since six o'clock in the morning yesterday! Isn't there a couch I can sleep on for a little bit?"

"No sir, there isn't. You have to leave now."

So I was escorted out of the building a little before midnight during a major snowstorm, sleep-deprived, and had to drive thirty miles to get home. An hour later I stumbled into my house, where my older sister was staying with my first kid. She came downstairs and stared at me. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I wish I had a good answer for her.

As it happened I attended a party almost a year later which included a number of the staff of that particular hospital, and I described with great relish what I had gone through, including the fact that they had put my life (and possibly others) at serious risk because of visiting hours. They stood there looking stunned as I described the lousy chair, the snowstorm, the hour long drive, and I left them very clear about how pissed off I was. My wife tried several times to stop me, but I was on a serious rant at that point. By the time I was done they all agreed that the treatment I had received was appalling and that someone should have applied at least a little common sense to the situation, while my wife stood by fuming at me for airing this publicly.

However, when our third kid was born I noticed that they had a nice padded chair for me to sit in and that they offered me the adjoining bed for a nap before I left...
( Wanderer, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 16:16, 3 replies)

That's pretty damn awful
Your Mrs. supposed to give birth during visiting hours only??? Doesn't make any sense. Sounds very much like hospital admin at its very worst best to me.
( SpankyHanky, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 17:19, closed)

Not sure what they were thinking, really.
For that matter, I'm not sure that they were thinking, other than "Visiting hours are over". Had I not been so exhausted and stunned by this I might have loudly demanded a supervisor and pointed out that they were putting themselves in a position of extreme liability with this, as if I had been in a crash I could have sued their ringpieces off.

I suspect that after I raged in front of those doctors that word got back to someone higher up the food chain and they too realized the liability position that they were in due to this overly rigid adherence to arbitrary rules.

Even now, almost 20 years later, I'm still pretty pissed off about it.
( Wanderer, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:01, closed)

That's awful
as your misses I'd have been pretty pissed off as well - I'd have wanted you there (I think - having never given birth!)
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Thu 11 Mar 2010, 18:33, closed)