So Adina was having contractions for most of Thursday night (a week and a half ago) and she woke me up at 5am on Friday morning – “I think you had better daven soon…”. A neighbor came over to help Moshe get ready for his day and take him to Maon and we left the apartment for Shaarei Tzedek at 6:30am. No traffic getting to the hospital (its Friday morning, after all) and at exactly 7am the elevator opened on the 9th floor. We went to the entrance of Labor and Delivery and…no one is there. Back to the main entry desk opposite the elevators – no one. We walk around a bit: “hello? anyone here?” (amidst contractions, and as we found out later at around 4+cm dilated) and finally find a Russian cleaning woman who doesn’t speak too much of anything other than Russian, who haltingly tells us to go back to Labor and Delivery.

When we get there we open the door and there are two people there doing sponga on the floor, mopping up and cleaning the area. Other than them, there are no nurses, no doctors. No one. They look up at us (a little bit annoyed at the interruption) and ask: “could you come back in 10 minutes? we are cleaning right now”. Adina and I both look back incredulously – “are you serious? Can we come back in 10 minutes? We are in labor!!”. “Is it urgent?”, they ask. “Well, we are not having the baby in the next few minutes, and contractions aren’t too painful yet”. “OK, so then please come back in 10 minutes”. (Which we did, at which point there were nurses, and everything proceeded accordingly).

Moral of the story: the night shift goes home and the first day shift comes on at 7am. Apparently this is a sacred time when no new patients – even ones in active labor – are allowed, as the new shift must say hello to each other, get their coffee, have a meeting etc. So if you are in labor and have been having contractions all night and intend to go to Shaarei Tzedek Hospital (and I presume any other hospital in Israel), please time things so that you do not arrive at the hospital between 7:00-7:20am (unless you want to meet the sponga people).