Riverbend Hospital

Last night we got to tour the new Riverbend Hospital opening in Springfield. It is HUGE! According to the website, "the hospital and OHVI buildings are more than two football fields long and almost a football field wide." Holy moly you could get quite the workout just walking all of the halls. We couldn't go until the last hour of the open tours, so we only saw a fraction of the new facility.

We did make it a point, though, to tour the NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit) and especially the labor and delivery area. We were quite impressed with the Delivery room suites. Very nice - very big - very impressive. They had everything in them that I liked about McKenzie-Willamette. What I wasn't impressed with, though, was that they still move the mother and new baby to a smaller post-delivery room. At McKenzie-Willamette, you stay in the same birthing suite for your entire stay - pre and post delivery. They're nice big rooms and we really liked it - lots of room for visitors to fit comfortably. Overall the patient rooms were very nice. And they no longer have any double-occupancy rooms, so that was good to know.

Above is the view from the rooftop, but the view in general is spectacular. All of the rooms in the back (and I think most of the patient rooms are along the back) overlook the river and trees - it's beautiful. The whole look of the hospital is much more like a rustic lodge than a sterile, white hospital.

Obviously, we hope we never have to use this new facility - and I'm still not convinced about the post-delivery rooms, but we'll have a better idea after my cousin's wife has her baby there next month.

After the tour we met my parents for dinner at the new Hole in the Wall BBQ. Let me tell you, good food, but not the most toddler friendly. They had high chairs and sippy cups (which was nice because we hadn't packed one), but that was about it. No fold-up changing table in the restrooms and no kids menu. We had sorta counted on them having at least mac and cheese - no such luck. So Ethan was starving and we were trying to convince him to eat the toasted cheese sandwich - which he wanted nothing to do with. Poor kid was probably starving and we had none of his regular dinner favorites with us. He settled for some fries - I think the first time I've actually allowed it (though I know my mom and sisters have slipped him a couple!), but we still ended up leaving early because Sean and I still had both cars.

Quite an exhausting evening!