Well, I guess I spoke too soon when I mentioned that I had no other hospital experiences to compare my birthing experience to…I just spent two days in the Hanau City hospital with Mackenzie. No worries – this story has a happy ending all around.

Last Saturday evening, Stefan and I went to walk the dog and returned to my mom crying and a bit frantic. While coming down the stairs, she tripped on something and Mack and Grand Dale took a flying lesson in our entry way. The landing turned out to be a bit rough and I think they won’t be giving that another go. For safety’s sake, we took both Mackie and Grand Dale to the hospital for a checkup. Grand Dale needed stitches in both elbows (which managed to take the brunt of the fall – it’s a wonder nothing was broken!) and we weren’t really sure if Mackie had even touched the floor but we felt it was better to be certain that she was ok. So they admitted her into the hospital for 48 hours of observation (checking her eye responses and pulse every hour.)  I as her milk-giver was allowed to tag along.

The first room they put us in was with a 13-year-old girl who didn’t seem to know what was wrong with herself. She looked pretty miserable when we first checked in but gave the impression that she was milking things by the time I left the hospital. The nurses had already caught on to her game, though. Then they threw a 14-year-old girl in there with us (who looked about 17) who’d passed out for no apparent reason. One night with me and I think both of those girls were fairly sure they didn’t want kids any time soon…which I figure was the hospital’s point anyway.

On Sunday afternoon they moved me into another room with a Turkish mother and her 4-year-old daughter who had some sort of stomach problems. Unfortunately I was a lot less comfortable in the second room since the mom and family weren’t the most cordial. At about 10pm when Mackenzie and I were starting to settle down, the family showed up and the little girl who was told to stay in her bed and sleep naturally got wound up. They were all talking, the kid was screaming…fun times were not had by all. Then she needed to beat out the beds, change them and so on. Therefore I wandered the halls for about two hours until things settled down. Sure, I could have complained or asked for another room but what would it really bring me? Mack was still alert, moving was a hassle and I was only in there for one more night. Instead I just sucked it up and kept up the countdown.

Monday was another day and it turned out decent but our indicated release time of 8pm couldn’t come soon enough. Mack slept much of the afternoon and Stefan’s boss kicked him out of the office for the day when he heard what had happened so he was able to hang out with us until we could go home. When the doctor finally gave us our release papers at 6pm, we were ready to bolt out of there…but she said we needed to stay until 7:30. Why, oh why?!

Thankfully, one of the nurses had mercy on us and said, “Why don’t you shoot for 7? I’ll do the last check on her eyes to make sure she’s responding and then you guys can take off. I don’t see any clocks around here telling us the exact time, anyway” And she winked. I think both Stefan and I wanted to kiss her.

The Stadt Klinikum Hanau doesn’t seem like a bad place, overall; they just need to work on their efficiency a bit. They seem to have a bunch of redundant staff members, especially cleaning/support personnel. The floor must have been renovated recently because everything was looking new and sparkly still. Most of the staff was friendly and helpful and the Murphy beds in the rooms for parents to sleep in are quite cool and comfortable.

It was a bit weird just being the tag-along for Mackenzie in the hospital. They kinda talk at the parents and not to them because their primary concern is, of course, the child. Since the floor is babies and youth, some kids were a bit older and didn’t have parents hanging out with them the whole time. For those in their teens it was understandable, but there was one little 8-year-old girl we met with no one there which we found a bit depressing. She said she had 5 sisters and 1 brother…so I guess having a parent there full time wasn’t such an easy task with so many other kids to manage. Stefan was ready to pack her up and take her home with us. 😉

I’m happy to report that both Mackenzie and Grand Dale are doing great. Mack shows absolutely no signs of any problems and we go for her general checkup today anyway so after this one’s over, we’ll be quite certain that she’s got no problems. She’s upped her weight to 9 pounds (4090 grams) but supposedly only grown about 1/2 an inch in length (53 cm total) which we find a bit hard to believe since she’s barely fitting in her newborn outfits anymore. Grand Dale is still a bit battered and bruised but she’s at least feeling human again and not having too much trouble doing anything. We did change our plans of going down to Stefan’s parents for New Years since we feel that traveling tonight would just be a bit too much stress. We got home at about 8pm last night and we just need a bit of calm now after the storm to put things back together and get back to the norm again.