Before I gave birth, a friend of mine, a sophisticated poet living in Israel who was pregnant with her fourth child, told me that she looked forward to her time in the hospital. Three months pregnant, she told me that she already knew what books she would take with her to the hospital. When she talked about her future hospital stay, her face lit up as if she were describing a week on a secluded beach in Tahiti where she would drink pina coladas for breakfast while having her feet massaged.

Not once did she mention the birth. Not a word. I, pregnant with my first baby, was flabbergasted. What about Lamaze breathing and a focal point? What about getting home as soon possible to bond with your baby?

I pitied her. How could anybody consider a hospital visit a vacation? Hospitals smell. There are sick people in there. Dying people. The televisions are tiny.

Four years and three births later, I'm in my hospital bed begging: "Please let me stay. Just a little bit longer." The nurse looks at the clipboard and frowns.

My children expand once they enter the bed to occupy the maximum possible space.

"One more morning," I plead. She shakes her head no. "Damn it," I shout. "If the insurance company won't pay, I will."

The food is lousy and the place smells. But nobody is eating off of my plate. I finished my first cup of tea in four years this morning.

My brush stays in one place. My keys, my glasses, my makeup. At home, I have nowhere to put my lipstick. I hide it so often that I can't remember where I've put it. Nobody in my family had a toothbrush for seven weeks because every time one entered the house, it was immediately seized and taken to unknown parts, the black hole where my glasses and my husband's checkbook reside.

I have time to read the newspaper. All of the pages are in order and none of them are gnawed. I talk on the phone and no child pushes the buttons or pulls out the wire. I can hear. Nobody is screaming "Wipe me!" while I converse with my boss.

The call button is a wonderful appliance. I want to take one home with me. Ginger ale, please. They won't even let me get out of the bed here! Nurse, please take the baby. She needs to be changed. Nurse, the baby is crying.

I can write. Nobody's pushing the keys of the computer or hitting the back of my head as I type. Nobody's scribbling on my prose as it dangles from the printer.

Perhaps the most wonderful thing is having my bed to myself. I stretch out luxuriously. Yes, I know about the family bed. But there is nothing like not sharing a pillow. My children expand once they enter the bed to occupy the maximum possible space. I don't understand it. How can such a little body take up so much room? It's a new law of physics.

There's another law of physics I've learned: A child's body at rest tends to stay in motion. And a parent's body in motion would like to be in rest. Preferably in a bed. Even a hospital bed.

That's why those insurance companies won't let us stay. They know how good it feels. They know if we stay too long we may never want to get up. We'll demand call buttons at home. So they have promulgated the myth that it's best for the mother's health if she returns home the day after she's ejected a watermelon from her uterus.

Our mothers used to stay in bed after a birth. They had silk and velvet bed jackets in those days. Trimmed in lace. I say, bring back the bed jacket.