Hospital Tour

This past Sunday Seth and I were able to take a little tour of the maternity ward at Presby Plano and were really happy with what we saw.  Since the tour was over an hour long, I had to swallow my pride a bit and let Seth push me in one of their wheelchairs to make sure I didn't overdo it.

General hospital:
As far as the general location of the hospital it is West of the Tollway, South of Parker Road.  Our tour started in the main lobby where we would enter the hospital (provided the girl's arrival wasn't an emergency situation).  The emergency entrance is located on the East side of the main campus, off of Communications.  Parking is free at the hospital (unless you opt to valet - that's $4).  They also have a free parking garage off of Parker Road if covered parking is desired (it's free as well).  The hospital has a security system set up to ensure that the babies don't leave with unauthorized people so that is reassuring.  There's ample waiting area and some places for children to play while people wait on all of the floors (it looks like the 4th floor area has the most kid friendly areas though).  They have a level 3 NICU which is comforting (hopefully we won't need it, but it's nice to know that they have one should we need it).  Also we were told that the cafeteria has been rated and should actually have some decent food available :-D

Third Floor - Mother's Store, Antipartom, OR, and Labor and Deliver rooms:
The labor and delivery rooms are very nice and quite roomy.  It is my understanding that we will start out there, head to the OR for the girls' big entrance, and then return to my labor and delivery room to recover for a few hours before I am transitioned into a postpartum room.  They will get almost all of their tests and treatments with us in the room.  On this floor there's even a Mother's store run by the lactation consultant that is supposed to have lovely gifts as well as all the nursing accouterments you could ever desire.

Fourth Floor - Nursery and Postpartum:
The postpartum rooms are all single rooms which should ensure our privacy and minimize the hospital staff coming in and out of our room.  They were considerably smaller than the labor and delivery rooms, but still quite nice and provide Daddyberry a place to sleep too.  Some of them have had the interiors redone recently, but that just depends on what tower your room is in.  The hospital encourages the parents to have their babies 'room in' so the girls will be with us the entire time.  The nursery is on the  same floor, but is empty most of the time since the preference of the hospital is to give the babies as much time as possible to bond in the room with you.  They really only take the babies to the nursery for procedures (like circumcisions and such - which our little girls obviously won't need) or at the doctor's or parent's request.

We didn't get to go into the NICU or the OR's for sanitary reasons but the areas were pointed out to us and are in logical locations.  Overall we were impressed with the facility and are really happy to have our girls starting their journey of life there

We've been really happy with everything at the hospital so far and really feel like it's the right place for us.  I'll update you all on the cesarean section class (which we had last night) and the breastfeeding class (which we have tonight) as soon as I have the opportunity.