A Very Special Hospital Tour

Sometimes being pregnant via a gestational carrier has its perks.  One of these perks is that we got our own personal hospital tour.

When I met with a lactation consultant a while back she mentioned that adoptive and intended parents can get their own room at the hospital when the baby is born so that the baby can room in with them.  I was ecstatic to hear this since the days and really hours after birth can be crucial in beginning to establish a breastfeeding.  Being able to stay at the hospital and have our baby room in with us would give us time for bonding right away.

I called the hospital to find out what we needed to do to "reserve" our room.  The care coordinater that I spoke with was so happy that I had called.  She explained that they would start a file for us with all of our paperwork and that we were encouraged to come in for a special tour for just us and our GC to go over any questions.

That is pretty cool.  Our own special tour!

We are very lucky that in Minneapolis there is a third party reproduction agency that has worked with several surrogates/gestational carriers.  And, that the agency encourages births at our hospital.  So, our hospital is well versed in surrogate/gestational carrier births.  Since there are less than 1,000 surrogate/gestational carrier births across the entire US each year, we are very lucky that our hospital hosts around 10 of those each year.

Our care coordinator was awesome.  She answered all of our and our GC's questions and was very reassuring that all of our needs would be met during and after the birth process.  She went through our file and made sure that all of our paperwork to date was in order and even contacted our lawyer for us to ensure that everything would be ready for the time of our birth.

So, there is a perk to living where we live :)