My recent visit to the hospital to give birth to my second daughter has made me reflect on the different types of family that come together in this space to welcome the newcomer to the world.
Bearing in mind that, as a nurse told me a long time ago, it is the plant in which the joys fit most, the truth is that there are ways and ways of manifesting them and living them. I have been able to observe these types of families: the discreet, the invisible and the scandalous or excessively effusive.
Surely there are other types of living the birth of a baby, but here are these typologies that I have encountered.
Discrete families
They are those families that live fatherhood with some discretion and reserve, probably aware that there are different situations of recovery, fatigue and moods on the same floor. They are recognized by the counted and silent visits, by some bouquets of flowers at the door and, ultimately, by discretion and respect for other parents, mothers, babies and family members who occupy the same plant.
The visits they do not arrive at the hospital until a few hours have passed and even a day since birth, thereby respecting the necessary contact and intimacy between parents and baby these first moments.
Invisible families
They are those that you only discover when they are discharged or you cross the aisle to the mother or father with the baby when they are going to give him a bath. They have lived fatherhood with absolute discretion and intimacy. Joy does not have to be at odds with tranquility, loneliness and rest.
Excessively effusive families
Here I find the typology that has bothered me. They are usually first-time and young parents with a large group of family and friends who will receive the newborn in a continuous and cumulative drip. In the same way that people and calls are accumulated by mobile with a scream stripped in the hall through which we learned how the delivery has been in detail on several occasions, there seems to be a contest of accumulation of bouquets at the door.
They have no respect for the neighbors of the floor or room in terms of silence, tranquility and privacy. It goes without saying that, in my opinion, they do not respect the mother (hopefully well enough to endure all this) or the baby. They arrive at the hospital accompanying the future mother before she gives birth, and there they are at her exit. Meanwhile, calls to other relatives and friends begin to occur: "I will be a grandmother," "It is a caesarean section," "They are recording it on video," "Tell Perico and Menganito" ...
Come on we find out all the details before and after childbirth, how much the baby has weighed, who it looks like or the points that have been given to the mother, and leave me with an impressive feeling of frivolity, apart from a desire for silence that despite getting it does not get positive answer.
Anyway, we will remain discreet ... Do you know more types of families that meet at the hospital's maternity facility?
