For anyone considering giving birth in Ukraine, I highly recommend ISIDA. We found the care top notch, cheaper than the equivalent in the US and really above and beyond the call of duty. Most importantly - they were willing to listen to pretty much all of our requests and were slow to do interventions despite the fact that I had a not so normal delivery since my water broke before contractions started. (When we came into the clinic at 1:30am - the doctor looked at me with this "how could you do such a thing" look and said - so are you the one whose water broke?- Which I found humorous, like I can control when my water broke?!) Anyway - we are thrilled and very pleased with the entirety of care we received at ISIDA and recommend them 100%.
My mom has been here to help out - which is a God-send as I don't know what the house would have looked like or what we would have eaten the first 2 weeks. Now, I am slowly able to do things - a load of laundry on my own and dinner were my achievements of yesterday - though I missed having a nap.
1st impressions of parenthood? Well - we were given lots of baby clothes and blankets- and I didn't see how we could possibly use them all. However - over the last three days we have soiled 7 blankets, 1 crib sheet, and 10 baby shirts/onesies etc. I had no idea. I mean 7 blankets!!
The next observation is swaddling. Somehow - in all our blankets - we didn't have one that was really acceptable for an American style swaddle - they were either too small to be effective or too heavy to be comfortable. However- in the hospital - they showed us a different swaddle - a Russian swaddle. After finally obtaining a decent sized swaddle blanket (Thanks Dawn!) I have decided that still the Russian swaddle is not only easier - but more effective. It can be used with both square and rectangular blankets (and a smaller size as well - even the receiving blankets worked for the first two weeks until she started stretching her legs out more) and so can be used as the baby gets bigger if you use a long piece of rectangular fabric. It is easier in that you don't have all this holding of the arms down as you fold fabrics and make little tucks and pleats. The main key is pulling the arms tight and making sure that when you wrap and "tie" the legs, that the arm fabric is trapped underneath the leg wrap.
Unfortunately - I have only found this one video demonstrating the "Russian Swaddle" method - but as I don't have a lot of time right now - and in the interest of spreading the ease of a tightly wrapped swaddle - I am including it.
