Our Mon General Hospital And Women's Healthcare Experience

As our daughter Sylvia came into the world, Jamie and I had the distinct privilege of a weekend getaway at hotel Mon General. While we didn’t take advantage of all of the amenities offered to us during our stay, we were really impressed with the facilities as well as the staff—they were incredible.

For starters, the staff of Women’s Health Care of Morgantown were phenomenal. Midwives Rhonda Conley and Stephanie Lowe did an incredible job of caring for Jamie throughout her delivery, and Dr. Shane Prettyman gave prompt congratulations to Jamie and myself moments after her delivery. If you are going to have a child and you live in this area, I highly recommend the team at Women’s Healthcare of Morgantown. Not only were they great during the final stages of pregnancy at the hospital, but also, Rhonda, Brook Ann, Stephanie, and the entire team at WHC were encouraging and gave solid answers to all of our questions throughout Jamie’s pregnancy. Mon General has been very wise to contract with them for delivering babies too!

And then, what can I say about the nursing staff at Mon General! Jennifer Bender, our nurse on the day of Jamie’s labor, stayed an extra two hours plus at the end of her shift to see us through to the finish. She and the rest of her team offered solid counsel and helped Jamie really get started strong with breast feeding. Kiley Everson and Stephanie Smith offered wonderful care and guidance during the rest of our stay. As mentioned briefly in a previous post, Stephanie gave me a quick tutorial on diaper duty—if only she could see me now!

Other nurses came in to help us out as well, but I did not get all of the names. One nurse even coached us through all of the details around how to place Sylvia properly in the car seat, and showed us the special tool on the back of our car seat that is used for older vehicles That tool will come in handy when we are traveling to other locales and we can’t just “click in” our seat to a base.

The housekeeping and food service staff were also phenomenal. Each one of them was highly congratulatory of myself and Jamie, and we loved that they offered healthy choices on the menu. They even prepared a special meal for us to celebrate the arrival of our child. I had a steak and Jamie had chicken cordon bleu as the main course for our meal.

While we know that every day will be a learning experience with Sylvia, the entire team at Mon General and Women’s Health Care did their best to make sure we were as prepared as possible for the road ahead. We are grateful for their support and encouragement over the 42 weeks of jamie’s pregnancy and the two days of our stay at the hospital.

Celebrating The Arrival of #TeamWilliams Newest Member: Sylvia Ann

On October 21^st at 2055 EDT, (8:55PM) our lovely daughter, Sylvia Ann, entered into this world, wide-eyed and alert. She weighed seven pounds two ounces and was nineteen and three-quarters inches long. She is beautiful, and we are so very grateful to finally meet her. Jamie and I are incredibly excited to have her in our lives, and I feel like we have been sharing tears and joyful smiles with this little miracle from the moment we first laid eyes on her.

We are so impressed and grateful for all of the staff at MonGeneral—they have gone above and beyond in every way!l! One of our dear friends, Abby Hills, who is also a nurse on the floor, stopped in to visit us yesterday morning before traveling out of town to celebrate her dad’s birthday, and our midwives (Rhonda Conley and Stephanie Lowe) were incredibly supportive and offered sage wisdom and counsel throughout Jamie’s pregnancy, and they were both patient and encouraging as Jamie moved through the stages of labor.

Our first nurse, Jennifer Bender, stayed with us over two hours extra to make sure we were all set and this little bundle of joy made it out with no problems!!! It meant so much to us to have such strong professional support and encouragement all the way through Jamie’s labor. It was an added bonus to have Jennifer present because she also taught Jamie’s lactation class this summer. Providentially, we had previously met and spent time with the entire team who were walking Jamie and Sylvia through the home stretch. Throughout the time they all brought a superior level of care and encouragement, and they were as excited as we were to find out whether Sylvia was a boy or a girl upon her arrival!!!

And the team who have taken us through our stay have been incredible as well. Kylie, our nurse through the night, has just recently come back to work, and she really did an awesome job coaching Jamie through breast-feeding fundamentals. Sylvia was able to enjoy her first meal from Mom just a few hours into her arrival. And this morning, Nurse Stephanie Smith, took the baton from Kylie and has carried our training to another level. She’s teaching us the ropes around swaddling, using a Boppy pillow, and (for me) how to change a poopy diaper.

This whole journey has been absolutely incredible, and as of my writing of this post, Sylvia has only been outsider her mom’s womb for a few hours. She has been so curious and taking in this whole new world with fresh eyes. She is already teaching me so much!

And Jamie, she is such a warrior! She went through the whole process of labor completely focused and calm. I know a lot of people compare running a marathon to giving birth, but as an outside observer who has done one and will never do the other, the consistent thread between each of them that I have witnessed in Jamie’s life is this. Each of us are capable of far more than we realize, and when I think about Jamie’s labor and delivery (and her first marathon), I feel like I am witnessing a deeper awareness and awakening of all that she is capable of.

And as I pray for my daughter and her journey on this earth, I pray that God will awaken that same deep understanding of what is possible for her, and that He will guide me and Jamie with the wisdom and the discipline to nurture the development those gifts and possibilities.

Jamie and I are overcome by a rich sense of gratitude for this entire journey together, and we are excited for this next chapter of our lives with Sylvia. We are grateful for the prayers and support of so many friends—they have truly sustained us, and we know those prayers are a gift. My first words, before the traditional announcement of, “It’s a girl!” were “She’s beautiful!” I pray that she will always have a deep abiding since of how beautiful and loved she is.

Sylvia is beginning a life that, God willing, will see her grow to be a compassionate servant leader, a faithful steward of resources, and caring and considerate follower of the way of Jesus. We have found ourselves praying often for her to know God and to bring glory to His name, that she would go so much farther than we have in our own faith journeys, and that others would be blessed through the life this she leads. As we continue this journey forward we pray that just as we have prayed over the course of our marriage and relationship, that God would give us the discipline and wisdom we need to steward the gifts He has given. May we all faithfully and graciously walk together in the path that Love has set before us.

Reflection: Birthing Class

Recently in preparation for the arrival of Baby Williams, Jamie and I took a two day birthing class offered at Mon General Hospital in Morgantown, WV. The class cost $60, but one of the teachers said that it might be reimbursable through insurance. Regardless, I believe the class was well worth it.

Here are just a few reasons.

1)   During the class we were able to watch multiple videos of childbirth, and it really helped us reframe a number of our perceptions around childbirth. Neither myself nor Jamie have spent much time in a labor and delivery area (other than visiting friends and relatives after a birth), and so it was incredibly helpful to see several couples choosing to go a natural route with childbirth. The philosophy at Mon General is to encourage natural childbirth when possible, but be prepared for whatever is needed.

2)   Skills and tools for coaching, support, and relaxation were provided, and we were able to practice a few of them. These included experimentation with different positions that Jamie could take during labor, relaxation and breathing techniques, and massage and other support I could offer during labor.

3)   The class had more than a dozen couples in it, and it was a very tangible reminder that there are many other couples who are proceeding along a similar timeline, and who also are looking to learn all they can about the miracle of childbirth before their baby arrives. While intellectually we know that people are having children every day, there was something comforting about knowing there were so many of us locally preparing for the birth of our first child.

4)   Developing a birth plan and preferences. We had heard a good bit about birth plans before the class, but after taking the class, we have a better idea of what we want to include in Jamie’s birth plan, and have begun to lay out those preferences.

5)   Reduced anxiety around labor and childbirth. Well-meaning people tend to open up to Jamie about the trauma of their labor and childbirth, and much of what is available in the media portray childbirth and labor as EXTREMELY painful and traumatic. Those stories and portrayals serve to only amplify our own fear and anxiety. After this class, our perspective has been reframed to begin thinking about labor as something that does not have to be traumatic or EXTREMELY painful. We have no misgivings that it will be an easy process, but I believe the class has left us more excited about the process, and we are planning to go through as much of the process as we can at home. We will still give birth in a hospital, but we now know that we don’t need to speed to the hospital the first time Jamie has a contraction.

I could list many more reasons to take a similar course, and I’m sure Jamie could add several as well but we both wanted to encourage folks who are expecting to make the investment in a course. If you are local to Morgantown, Pam Po and Rhonda Hopkins at Mon General Hospital both do an incredible job teaching/facilitating the class.