VIP Service: Nurses and Doctors

About half of the team of nurses and doctors that helped us.

So when we decided to have the baby in Wuhu, we asked around about hospitals, and No.2 kept coming up as a good one. Well, No.1 and No.2, but we decided to look at No.2 because it was close to school. Turns out they had just built a new VIP birthing wing, on the 8th floor. So we booked a room with them, and did our prenatal checkups there. The VIP wing has a total of 16 rooms, all of the 1 mother / room. This is different than the main birthing area, which is 2 / room. Two families in one room could get pretty hectic, plus the other services the VIP staff offered (brand new equipment, 24/7 monitoring, lactation consultation, swimming, internet, TV, microwave, fridge, 4 meals a day, father can stay and sleep with mother, father can cut the umbilical cord, nurses and doctors helping teach all aspects of newborn care, and so on....) -- made us choose to do the VIP service.

The only service they didn't provide was coffee, so I brought my own machine, mugs, beans, and grinder!

We were super thrilled with all the nurses and doctors. 10 nurses, 3 doctors -- and we tried to learn all their names. The nurses would check on us every 2 hours, recording all the vital stats, and if we wanted to sleep at night (impossible!) they would take care of Connor for us. We had nurses sometimes stay with us for 3 hours at a time, helping show us how to change diapers, make formula, breastfeed, read Connor's various expressions, burp, ....pretty much everything we needed to know before going home. We felt extremely comfortable and safe, freeing us to really enjoy Connor the whole time.

The three doctors that cared for Kim and Connor.

And this wasn't because we were foreign -- they were treating all the guests like that. It was pretty awesome to see. Also, they were super patient with my Chinese. The range of English speaking from the nurses and doctors was like this: 7 nurses had no English-speaking capabilities, 1 nurse could say a few things in English, mostly trivial, and 2 nurses could speak a few sentences (without having been a teacher here for a couple years, it would be very hard to understand their meaning, though their pronunciation was alright). 1 of the doctors could speak English, but this was limited to a few phrases she had learned to ask patients when she lived in Yemen for a few years. So, about 95% of our communication in the hospital (6 days) was in Chinese. Pretty challenging, frustrating, and rewarding all at the same time -- probably for them, too. They were all great about it, though, and every now and then would try an English word or two.

Lots of free things came with the service, too: 6 pink outfits, a blue bigger thick outfit thing, 2 washpans, a bucket (either for vomiting or trash), a cup, post-birth belt for recovery, kit for umbilical cord cleaning, washcloths, and........our VERY OWN BEDPAN!!

We made friends with one of the doctors, a young woman (our age) who just had her own child 8 months ago. I talked with her last night, after we left the hospital, and she met me today and gave me a breast pump she had but never used. For free! Now THAT'S VIP service.

When we left, we asked the nurses and doctors to sign one of Connor's pink (manly) outfits as a keepsake for when he grows older.

Swimming. Just cute. I have no idea if we do this in America, but the French  foreign teacher here said it is extremely popular in France right now. The flotation / torture device also plays a crappy rendition of "Jingle Bells".