Don’t make the same mistake I did. When my wife went into labor barely eight months into our pregnancy, I had to run around the house like a madman on a scavenger hunt trying to find everything we’d need. You should put your go bag together four to six weeks before your due date at the latest.

Luckily, my wife had written down a list of items to take. Had I not had that list, I would have been twice as lost.

The whole purpose of the bag is to have essentials and comfort items “JUST” for the delivery room. Your hospital bag will probably be much bigger and should be left in the car when you go to the hospital until after the baby is born.

Delivery rooms aren’t very large and there isn’t much storage space. If you show up with a fleet of bags packed like you’re going on a european vacation, you will end up miserable, trying to keep them out of the way and you may end up dragging them from room to room if they move you.

In our case, since I wasn’t prepared, I grabbed the first bag I could find, which was a large duffel bag… Too large, would be a better term. By the time we were settled in the delivery room, I had a large duffel bag, my coat, my wife’s coat, and another bag with the clothes and shoes my wife wore to the hospital.

It was hard enough trying to find space for all of them, but when the doctors decided we’d need to do an urgent cesarian Section, I had to load all this stuff on my back and carry it down the hallways like a pack mule. It was made even worse because I had to change into scrubs and carry all my clothes and shoes in yet another bag! I also discovered that there are no closets in the operating rooms, so I ended up having to leave all of our stuff out in the hallway. I ended up having to repeat the process yet again when we moved to the recovery room after our newborn baby made her arrival.

All that being said, pack a SMALL  bag with just the following essentials, plus any small comfort items you can fit:

Chapstick – The hospital air can be dry and mommy will be breathing heavily during labor which will dry out her lips.

Hair bands – Mommy will be sweating and moving around a lot. You don’t want her hair tangled in the tubes and equipment. Also, take my word for it, if you don’t tie it back, wifey’s hair will look like a bird’s nest by the end of the event.

Advil or other pain and headache relievers – For daddy! The hospital will often not give a non patient any medication. If they do, you can look forward to an item on your bill charging you $20 for a nurse “dispensing” medication.

Light snacks. Inevitably, you will end up getting to the hospital when the gift shop or cafeteria is closed. Pack some snacks and drinks. Again, most of this will end up being for dad since mommy won’t be allowed to eat once labor and pushing has begun.

Pack two old pillows with pillow cases. Put one in your delivery go bag and the other in your larger hospital bag. Hospital pillows are usually well worn and flat as can be. Pillows from home can be much more comfortable and comforting. Plan on throwing away the pillows when you leave the hospital as you don’t want to bring home any hospital germs with them.

Bring prescription medications for both mommy and daddy. You may be at the hospital for a couple of days so bring your pills with you.

Cell phone chargers. Bring chargers for both mommy and daddy’s cell phones. Hospitals still charge an arm and a leg for a room phone and you have to give the number to everyone. Your cell phone is already paid for and as long as you’re not obnoxious to your neighbor by being loud, you can most likely use it freely once you’re moved to your room. Be courteous and put it on silent ring tone so you don’t disturb your neighbors.

Cameras and chargers. Make sure you keep your camera battery charged and ready to go. Put your camera and its charger in your delivery bag for your newborn baby’s first pictures. I suggest you also bring a spare disposable film camera in case anything goes wrong with the digital. You will be mighty unhappy if your digital isn’t working or get’s dropped in the excitement and you have nothing but crappy cell phone pictures of your newborn baby! You can also test the charge on your camera from time to time by taking some of mommy’s last pregnancy pictures before the baby comes.

Thick socks. It can get chilly at the hospital and you don’t want to walk on the floor with bare feet or the cheap hospital slippers alone while heading to the bathroom. Bring some thick socks for mommy to wear. Several pairs should do so that you don’t accumulate dirt and germs on the same pair for days.

Copies of your insurance and prescription cards. Even if you usually carry your insurance cards in your wallet, put a copy in your delivery bag in case you happen to forget your wallet in the heat of the moment.

Obviously you can bring anything else you thing you’d need, but try to keep your hospital delivery room bag as small as possible.

Good luck with your pregnancy and your newborn baby!

What did you pack in your bag? Let me know with a comment below!

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Friday night I left the hospital and wifey was feeling well and positive. I expected to come back on Saturday morning finder her feeling great. We had already talked it over and decided we’d stay in the hospital until Monday so that we would have an extra day of help with the baby and an extra day of monitoring showing us that everything is going well.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I call wifey to see how she’s doing and let her know that I’m on the way. She’s crying and says that she wants to leave. I ask for details and find out that she’s had a day from hell.

She’s experiencing a lot of pain from the C Section incision and is taking pain killers. The nursery brings the baby to my wife’s room every three hours since we’re breast feeding and don’t want the baby on forumula.

When wifey needs help to put the baby in the cradle and so she can go to the bathroom, she hits a call button next to the bed. It’s an intercom that rings the nurses station. She was pushing the call button and asking for help for several hours. Each time, she was told that her nurse would be there shortly. No one was coming.

Two hours passed at one point when my wife was laying in pain as she had a full bladder and was holding the baby. She couldn’t put the baby in its cradle and couldn’t get up by herself.

Even worse was that her pain was getting stronger since the nurse had also not been bringing her pain killers, which she was supposed to be getting every four hours.

On top of all of this, the nursery keeps sending the baby back to wifey’s room, waking her up about once an hour telling her that the baby won’t stop crying so she must be hungry. Meanwhile the minute wifey starts holding the baby, she is sleeping peacefully.

I’m fairly certain that the nursery was just trying to get rid of as many babies as possible. When I had taken baby Alex back earlier in the evening, they were absolutely full. I had never seen so many babies in one place and there was clearly a shortage of nurses to handle all of them.

I wouldn’t have minded them bringing the baby in and just explaining they were short staffed, but by telling wifey that the baby needed to eat, they unnecessarily kept her trying to breast feed and waking her up. Then when wifey would finish trying to feed her, she would send her right back to the nursery. This became a vicious cycle that just exacerbated the bad situation.

To ad insult to injury, when Pat (the nurse from hell) finally showed up, wifey was in a lot of pain and was upset and crying. Hell nurse starts patronizing her and telling her that she’s just emotional because of the pregnancy horomones were affecting her. She then goes on to lecture my wife telling her that she’s probably in the early stages of Post Pardum Depression, which explains why she’s crying.

Dr. Klein stopped in to see how wifey was doing. She was so upset and crying that she wasn’t able to explain to him what the problem was. The doctor went to speak to nurse Pat, who told him that she’s just being emotional.

Dr. Klein stopped back in and told wifey that we should just go home on Sunday instead of Monday. He said that I’d be able to take better care of her and keep her happier at home. Wifey agreed.

Now, to add insult to injury, the hospital’s lactation consultant comes in and starts lecturing wifey. She informs us that newborn baby Alex has lost more weight than expected since birth and that wifey isn’t feeding her enough. Wifey explained to her that the baby eats what it wants then falls asleep on the breast. The lactation nurse wasn’t convinced and continued lecturing her that she is doing something wrong.

When I arrived at the hospital and wifey explained all of this to me, I was furious. I immediately went to the nurse’s station and asked who was in charge. The head nurse, Emma came over and I calmly but seriously explained what had been happening and that I was very upset about it.

She apologized profusly and walked back to my wife’s room so that we could make things right. She immediately had wifey’s medication brought in and got someone to come and check her and help her to the bathroom and get back in order.

That night, Emma came in to check on us and let us know that she was leaving for the day but had left specific instructions that wifey should be taken care of. A bit later, two nurses came in and introduced themselves. Both were very nice and very pleasant and explained that they would both be taking care of wifey that night. After asking several times if we needed or wanted anything else, they left.

We decided that considering the events of the day, we’d bring the baby home the next day (Sunday).

I went out to get wifey some good food and came back. I stayed with her until about 1am just to make sure that she would be happy for as long as possible before I headed back home to get some sleep and to continue getting the house ready for the baby. Once I saw the new nurses come in to check on mommy and baby several times and she was comfortable, I decided I was leaving her in good hands and went home for some sleep, especially since it looked like the baby would be coming home the next afternoon and I needed to finishing getting the house ready for their arrival.

Unfortunately, the next day, the doctors were concerned that Alexandria had lost too much weight since birth and wanted to keep her for another day. It seemed like the hospital was at war with us and refused to let us leave. Rather than get upset about it, we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was better for the baby to stay another day in case there were any issues.

Luckily, Monday morning came and the baby’s weight was within the range the doctors wanted so we finally brought Alex home.

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