So Joom arrived at just after 7am and gave birth just after 8am, pretty fast and no mucking around. I got to the hospital just after 5pm and there was a crowd of people from the village there to see the new baby and mum.
Here is the father Jack and mum Joom. Noot couldn’t stop smiling.
This is the new addition to the family; she is a healthy baby girl that weighed in at 2.7 kilograms. I say she as she hasn’t been named, yet.
Noot wouldn’t leave the baby; she stuck around a few feet away with a grin from ear to ear on her face.
The baby close up, she slept happily the whole time I was there. The only little whimper that she made was when mum had to wake her for a feed. Even then it was a tiny cry.
You can see the baby is in the bed with Joom, and this is where she will sleep. They don’t have cribs and encourage this here in Thailand. When I suggested to Noot about buying a cot for a present, she looked at me funnily and said that the baby will sleep in bed with Jack and Joom.
Joom will be in hospital until Monday they said, the ward is basic but does the job. The hospital itself looks very tired and needs some work but it serves its purpose and is very busy.
I had an operation in this hospital just over two and a half years ago. I had my gall bladder removed after a really big stone had caused me unbelievable pain. I spent 6 days in this hospital, 3 days in a general ward and 3 days in a private room.
I remember talking to the doctor before the operation and saying “Have you done this operation before?” He had done many as Thai’ have this problem more than us westerners. Of course I don’t remember the operation but I do remember coming to and then ending up in a ward that was bursting at the seams, and there were beds outside in the corridor, open to the elements with only a concrete roof covering them.
You aren’t supplied with meals this is an extra so your family or friends bring you food, I wasn’t very hungry for a few days anyway, in the private room meals are supplied as well as drinks.
I can say that the nurses and doctors were fantastic, they were really professional and I wouldn’t have been looked after better back home, actually I am sure it could have been worse. The rooms were hot in the general ward and looked dirty but the cleaners where in the ward 3 times a day mopping the floors and wiping the beds and everything else down.
I do remember this, distinctively. I remember sitting in my bed in the general ward and there would have been 30 plus of us in there. The guy next to me looked as though he had been burnt really badly on his back and on one leg. The wounds though looking very nasty were cleaned a few times a day. Now this is what I remember, cats, yes, cats walking through the ward and under the beds. The first time I laughed as I was a little bombed out with pain relief but there were cats waltzing through the ward. I was on the third floor as well. On the ground floor there are dogs laying about and wandering the corridors. This is Thailand and in Isaan.
So today when I was sitting outside the maternity ward in the corridor and I looked over the edge, I wasn’t surprised to see a few cats looking back at me. There were three just lazing about and then a few more turned up and wandered up and down the corridor.
I laugh as I think about what would happen if a cat or dog was wandering the corridors of a hospital back home.
So, mum and dad are happy new parents. I will post more pictures of the new baby at a later date and also hopefully have a name. That was the most exciting news of the day and week.
Brunty
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