My first experience in Smiths Falls was so amazing I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.
In 2009, Amanda Kenny went into labour with her first child. Living close to Smiths Falls it was natural for her to get to the nearest hospital. At that time, the old hospital was still under redevelopment and wouldn’t be completed for another year.
This was Amanda’s first baby, and she was scared and unsure of herself, but the nurses, she says, were so competent, calm and kind, and made her feel comfortable and cared for “no matter what I looked like!” said Amanda.
For that first labour, Amanda was accompanied by her mother, and when one of the senior nurses came in to check on Amanda’s progress, her mother immediately recognised her. She was the same nurse who had brought Amanda into this world in Perth some 20 plus years earlier, and here she was helping deliver Amanda’s first baby at the Smiths Falls site of the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital!
Amanda’s experience truly brought home the privilege of a community hospital. Having the same nurse who’d brought her into the world coaching and guiding her with the calm assurance of experience and skill just added another layer of warmth and security for this new mother.
Soon after Amanda moved to Mississippi Mills, but when her second baby came due in 2011, she knew she wanted to be in Smiths Falls. This time she found herself in the newly renovated Smiths Falls site of the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital. The new birthing rooms were now equipped with jet tubs that labouring moms could use to help them relax.
It was a harrowing birth, that was moving along faster than Amanda could adjust. Feeling overwhelmed she was only too glad to slip into one of those tubs on the advice of her nurses. While she was in the tub and having difficulty finding her balance with the buoyancy of the water, a nurse got right in with her to help steady and guide her.
“My second baby was born so fast, her face was bruised and that’s her personality, she does everything super-fast and is a total klutz!” chuckles Amanda.
Shortly after she’d given birth, her husband came in and told her she was in the CIBC room. In the heat of labour, she hadn’t really noticed the plaque outside the room identifying CIBC as the sponsor of the room she was using. Amanda works for CIBC!
In 2015 Amanda was back to give birth to her third baby. This time her labour was a little slower but more erratic. “I didn’t think I was in labour,” but her body said otherwise. This time the nurses, who remembered her, suggested she get into the tub since it had worked so well the last time. Three hours later, Amanda was holding her third newborn baby girl, back again in the CIBC room!
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