Just a quick little note, Shobna (blingdiva) gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on the 13th of May at 3:05pm at Queen Mary Hospital. Baby was 3.38kgs and 51cm long. Mother and baby are doing very well and were discharged today.
She tells me that there is a working-mums email going round, but i couldn't find it in her inbox so i'm just going to post here till she gets round to it.
A couple of points from my side;
1) I think we made an extremely wise to choose QMH over some of the private alternatives. I can honestly say from my experience there that the quality of medical care is absolutely top notch. We ran into a spot of trouble during labour and had to have an emergency-C section - whilst extremely nerve racking for me, I felt immediately reassured when i saw how the medical and nursing teams were going about their work. Trust me, they are absolute professionals, and you wouldn't want to have anything less.
2) Aftercare, whilst without the frills of some of the private hospitals were pretty good. My advise is to make 'friends' with a nurse from each of the shifts. You will have a much better time. Oh and, the nurses in blue/white uniform are much nicer on the whole and willing to help than the matrons in white/red.
3) Wear their clothes! One of the things mentioned on our birthplan was that she would rather wear her own nightgowns in order to be as comfortable as possible. Well, its a messy affair and it soon dawned on us that wearing their clothes is not such a bad idea!
3) BRING YOUR OWN FOOD! I made breakfast, lunch, dinner deliveries everyday. It was also nice to sit outside the ward and have lunch together - See below;
4) Because of swine flu, they have reduced their visiting hours to just 6-8pm every day.
5) One last point, don't bother going for a mani/pedi prior to your expected due date (as she did) as I was sat during labour wiping off all the nail polish as per hospital rules.
If you have any questions about the QMH experience, please don't hesitate to ask!