Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Rebecca and John Bechtold of West View enjoy their candlelight dinner on May 1 at Magee Womens Hospital with their daughter, Grace, who was born the previous day. Click photo for larger image. More information Candlelight dinners can be purchased at Magee's first floor gift shop or by calling 412-641-4180, no later that 2:30 p.m. the day the dinner is to be served.

Enjoy it, parents, because it could be the last "dinner for two" you'll get for quite a while.

You're dining in a room in a maternity hospital, so your newborn likely will be in a bassinet nearby and will put an early end to the romantic celebration. But then, he or she is the reason you're clinking champagne flutes anyway, and, as the song goes, "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to."

For more than two decades, Magee-Womens Hospital has offered a candlelight dinner service for parents of newborns -- something that relatively few hospitals do these days.

"We take, say, a 40-inch table, we put it into the room, we drape it with linen, put a candle on it, a small bottle of champagne [and] two monogrammed Magee champagne glasses," explained Gregory Brown, director of food and nutrition for the hospital.

Menus offerings are "upscale," as he put it, such as Gulf shrimp scampi (sauteed with fresh garlic, butter, white wine and lemon juice), pan-seared salmon or tuna (on a bed of grilled vegetables with a balsamic glaze), surf and turf, chicken (marsala or parmesan), and a vegetarian farfalle pesto primavera.

A choice of a fresh fruit plate, Caesar or tossed salad for starters, an array of vegetables and starches for sides, and a variety of desserts, such as tiramisu, deep dish apple pie and carrot cake, round out the meal.

A "very small amount" -- about 10 ounces -- of champagne, is provided with dinner, "and that's to share," Mr. Brown said. Sparkling juice can be substituted.

You don't have to be the parent of a newborn to order the dinner. It's available to all hospital patients.

The same selections also are offered on a "gourmet" menu, for an additional charge, but are served on a standard tray rather than at a decked-out table. All the food is made at the hospital.

Candlelight dining has "been very successful," said Judy Lewis, manager of the hospital's Garden View Gift Shop, where the service can be purchased for $40 for two people. "We are averaging, according to my count, about 40 a month."

Some couples order it themselves, but it's also a popular gift for friends and family to bestow upon parents before the dining table gives way to the changing table.

"We will even get calls from out-of-state," Mrs. Lewis noted. "Somebody knows someone has just had a baby and they've heard about our candlelight dinner, so they would like to gift them a special evening."

Rebecca and John Bechtold, of West View, have four of her Pittsburgh Cultural Trust coworkers -- all men who have no children -- to thank for their supper, which happened last week about 36 hours after their first child, Grace, was born.

"It was really thoughtful of them to do that for us," said Mrs. Bechtold, 25. "It's not something I would have bought myself, but I really appreciated getting it as a gift."

She had salmon (which she always chooses when they go out to eat), rice pilaf and Italian mixed vegetable blend, and angel food cake for dessert. Her husband polished off a meal of chicken parmesan, rice pilaf, roasted red potatoes and chocolate cake.

Mrs. Bechtold was ready to be pampered. About 10 days overdue with an induction scheduled for two days later, she went to the hospital on a Sunday afternoon to get checked when the baby didn't seem to be moving very much. Doctors decided to induce her immediately because of a low amniotic fluid level.

"I had just had two pieces of toast before we came in, and I had those at 11 a.m.," she said. "I didn't come in on Sunday expecting to have a baby!"

As a result, "she was very hungry," Mr. Bechtold said, "From the moment we got here on Sunday, all she wanted was a turkey sandwich."

Grace was born by cesarean section at 5:40 a.m. on April 30. She weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces and measured 21 1/4 inches and is doing fine.

Her mom had to eat her way through clear fluid (such as vegetable broth) and soft (nothing fried or seeded, not even fruit) diets before her doctor OK'd her for solid food, namely the candlelight dinner that awaited.

That meal was of higher quality, but overall, "the food hasn't been that bad," Mrs. Bechtold said. Magee has a "room service" system, meaning patients can order from a wide menu whenever they wish. A guest meal can be had for an additional fee.

Her co-worker Andrew Stowell said the candelight dinner was something he "stumbled on" a few years ago. His nephew's wife was in labor with their daughter Alyssa in October 2001, and Mr. Stowell went to the gift shop to look around.

He learned about the dinner option while chatting with the store clerk, so he purchased it for the couple. He gave the same gift to the couple in August 2004 when they had their daughter Abby.

The candlelight dinner having become his go-to gift for baby births, he suggested it to his coworkers as a present for the Bechtolds.

"We [thought] we would go ahead and get that for them as a surprise gift, instead of sending like flowers or whatever everybody else sends," Mr. Stowell said. "It's something nice for the parents after they've had the child. It's just for the two of them, just to give them a chance to have a break and celebrate together."

Grace allowed her parents about 45 minutes of dinner-for-two time. "Then she was ready for dinner, too," her mother noted.

Magee might be the only hospital in the area that offers the dinner service. In these days of shorter postpartum stays, about two days at Magee, families might not have the time to stick around to eat.

But unless there are medical issues that require dietary or other restrictions, staff at most hospitals don't object to family and friends bringing in treats for mom and dad. And according to the American Academy of Family Physicians and other experts, an occasional alcoholic drink has not been show to cause harm to breastfed infants.

At Magee, in addition to a new baby, parents get to take home the hospital-branded champagne flutes, a keepsake of what was likely already an unforgettable experience.

Mr. Brown told the story of a couple who misplaced that memento:

"They were so upset -- because they wanted to keep them as part of their momentous occasion -- that they called us up and begged us, could they possibly get two more glasses? Of course, we accommodated them."