We sailed/ motored from the Abacos down to Nassau last night. All went well, we sailed for a few hours then the wind dropped down to 6 knots so we had to run the motor the rest of the way. Salty is pretty conservative with the fuel so it’s no problem but listening to the motor for hours on end isn’t as relaxing as the waves and wind in the sails. I did the first watch but only lasted to 11pm. I had a crappy sleep the night before and was trying everything to stay awake. I would set my kitchen timer for 15 minutes and read Game of Thrones on my kindle then do the usual checks then back to another 15 minutes. After a few rounds of this I realized that reading was making me seasick. Ewww. Staring out into darkness makes you sooo tired.
Carl took over watch at 11pm while I took a nap of what I thought was a few hours but he didn’t wake me until we were entering Nassau. Easy to say he’s pretty exhausted today.
We are here at a lovely new marina in Nassau overlooking Atlantis.There are a lot of draw backs from being at the dock, a large one is the cost and next is the lack of breeze and after that the girls constantly want to get off the boat and run up and down the dock. So this morning after we checked in we decided to walk around and find The Doctors Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital for a sticky beak. We got told The Doctors Hospital was a 10 minute car ride away but I swore it didn’t look that far on Google Earth. Off we went 10-15 minute walk later we arrived at The Doctors Hospital. This hospital is the only private hospital in Nassau and I guess I had high expectations for being a “private” hospital. They have a small maternity ward which we were quickly shown around. The head nurse there was NOT impressed by my request of a tour. The rooms were tiny and very “sterile” and there wasn’t a seat or couch for the dad to chill out on. The labor room had a bathroom but no shower, they definitely didn’t go for that cozy feeling a lot of maternity wards are going for these days. Next they take you to your shared room for an overnight recovery. She said that if they had the room we could pay extra for a private room, once again there were no sofas or seats for family let a lone a bed if Carl wanted to spend the night. And who wants to pay a bunch of money for a private hospital and not get your own room? It’s hard enough to sleep with your own baby that wakes every couple of hours let alone someone else's. This hospital didn’t rate very high on my scale of great hospitals.
Next a couple of blocks over was The Princess Margaret Hospital, this is the Bahamas public hospital. First you enter the doors and have to go through a metal detector which Carl and I both set off but were told that it didn’t matter. Hmmm why turn then thing on then. We met a cleaning lady who worked at the hospital outside the front gates and she was more than willing to show us the maternity ward. No security check in or anything. We turn the corner to find a long hallway filled with sooooo many people and the smell, the smell was a mixture of blood, maybe some urine and garbage. The smell dissipated once we reached a crowd of about 50 people where the maternity ward entrance was. One lady was yelling over the crowd to our girls not to touch the floor and made them disinfect their hands. The labor ward was on one side and the recovery on the other side of the corridor, I guess they make you cross out into the chaos with your newborn after delivery. We both looked at each other and I could tell Carl’s daddy instincts kicked in and he scooped up Wags, snatched Pri’s hand and said “we’re leaving NOW”. I think that’s about the scariest hospital I’ve been in, wall to wall sick people, newborn babies mixed in with all the illness. The funk smell. Not too mention the two drunks at the font gate with the pregnant woman passed out under a tree with beer cans around her, that should have been a sign right then and there.
I feel so disheartened and scared. The Doctors Hospital is obviously the only choice available here but it feels so foreign and scary like a laboratory. I’m pregnant, not sick. I would rather prefer to have the baby on the boat but would like someone there to take us through the steps. Carl and myself just aren’t cut out for delivering a baby by ourselves. I would love to find a midwife to do this. The birth would be much comfortable knowing that my family is right there with me and if anything did go wrong we could go straight to the hospital. We wouldn’t have to worry about hospital registrations, how to get to the hospital and what to do with the girls while I was in labor. What to do? I guess suck it up and deliver at The Doctors Hospital. I’m still on the hunt for a Doula, I’ve emailed off a few ladies but no replies yet. Maybe one of them would know a midwife for a boat birth. I’ve got to look on the bright side, at least I have options unlike the women waiting in the unsanitary halls of the Princess Margaret Hospital.
