Yesterday, we just reached 36 weeks in this pregnancy and it’s constantly crossing my mind how close we are til her due date. Time has seriously flown by and we’re rather eager to have our little girl in our lives. If you’ve been following along my journey, you know how interested and fascinated I’ve been with my prenatal care while in Europe. For the most part, it’s definitely different than what I would receive in the U.S. And as we get closer, things keep popping up in my head to talk about on the blog, so that’s where we are today.
prenatal care in europe
1. I didn’t test for gestational diabetes.
I’m not sure if it’s a huge concern in Europe as it is in the U.S. Does it bother me that I haven’t taken it? It doesn’t. From the beginning, everything in my pregnancy has been going rather well (*knock on wood*). So not getting one done hasn’t been a huge concern. Call me naive or whatever, but I was totally okay with not testing for it. The only thing they’ve done that came even remotely to was checking my blood sugar levels.
2. I don’t have appointments every week.
Since my 32 week appointment, the next scheduled appointment was my most recent (36 weeks) and my last one will be a week before her due date. This is definitely a big one because that’s not how it goes in the U.S. My most recent appointment was pretty routine, went in for GBS testing and fetal heart rate check (126 bpm). Everything checked out normal.
3. I have to bring my “baby book” to every doctor’s appointment.
This little book is probably the most important thing I can have with me at all times during my pregnancy. It’s kind of nice since I’m not confined to one doctor during my pregnancy while we’re in-country. It gives me a bit more freedom to see who I want and not have to re-do labs and all of that; essentially starting fresh. Inside of this book is all my stats and baby’s during each of my appointment, come delivery time the doctor on-call will have all my previous appointments to look back onto.
4. When I’m ready to deliver, we go to any hospital of our choosing.
And there’s no need to inquire beforehand, I just show up and bam, it’s time to get the show on the road. We’ve had our hospital picked out from the beginning, mainly because it was recommended to us by several people.
5. They are very ultrasound friendly here.
Pretty much every appointment I’ve had, there has been an ultrasound. My doctor uses the ultrasound machine to check the baby’s heart rate as well, so technically I guess that counts?
6. to get an epidural or not to get one.
EVERYONE I’ve talked to keeps telling to not get one. To be honest, I’m not leaning to either side, I’m right on the fence. All I want to know if I decide not to have one and change my mind during labor if they’ll give me one. I’m not quite sure how they do things in Europe. Of course, there are so many things that could happen and an epidural doesn’t work for me. My doctor highly recommends getting one, but as of right now, I’m not sure what I want to do. Feel free to share your experience.
We’re hoping for a smooth few weeks until baby decides to arrive since you know we’re on her time and hopefully nothing alarming pops up from now til she arrives. If anyone has questions even out of curiosity, don’t hesitate to ask. Not only will I be a first time mom, I’m swimming around in the world of not having our baby at a military base, and it has been QUITE the experience so far.
I’m so excited to “meet” your baby. I’m sure everything is going to go perfect!!
We can’t wait either … getting so close now!
I personally believe it all what you want to do when it comes to an epidural! It’s very much a personal choice. I will send you a message!
I got your message and sorry I haven’t replied!
Wow! I can’t believe you can choose any hospital to deliver–I’m sure that makes things a little less stressful. As far as epidurals go, it was a bit of a mixed bag for me (my birth story on my blog goes into it a little bit). It’s definitely a personal choice.
It makes things sooooo much less stressful, I guess it depends on the mom’s personal preference. But I’ve been so laid back and easy going this whole pregnancy, so it’s been working out great for us.
Can’t believe it’s almost time!! So excited!!!
Girllllll, you and me both! Ahhhhhh
Wow – it sounds like I would have enjoyed your prenatal care experience much more! Even though we changed providers at 28/29 weeks to go with someone more naturally-minded, I got so frustrated with everything being being treated like an opportunity to find something wrong. The GD diabetes test was actually the first time I was physically sick during pregnancy – I barely made it home after the test before being really ill several times. Literally nothing has gone wrong so far (knock on wood!!) for me or baby and I got so tired for tests for things I didn’t have. I haven’t announced it yet on FB or my blog, but our little girl arrived Thursday afternoon! I prepared since late July with Hypnobabies hypnosis and deep relaxation techniques and experienced a very rapid and mostly comfortable ‘birthing time’ (their term for labor).
Not to give you a huge birth story… but I actually started out with a PROM Thursday night, went in to get things checked out, and was allowed home overnight as long as I checked my temp. I came back 12 hours later because things hadn’t picked up well on their own and, because here they like to set a 24 hour clock when you rupture to prevent infection (some of the doctors at our hospital don’t even give you that long!) they ended up starting me low and slow on Pitocin around 11 am. I had been preparing and planning for a natural birth and the Pit made me nervous, but I honestly thought I wasn’t making much progress when a room opened up and I got out of the tiny triage room a bit after 1400. Almost instantly after arriving things changed and pick dup and it’s like transition happened in 3 minutes for me. I pushed for just less than an hour and she was born at 15:36! Pushing was very intense and i was surprised that it took me a little while to even figure out how to push, but I am so thankful for our preparation and that I did it without an epidural. My ‘waves’ (Hypnobabies for contractions) up until pushing felt like very strong pressure/some cramping and they weren’t exactly pleasant, but they weren’t what I’d call painful. I’m absolutely positive that a combination of my midwife helping me with warm compresses and oil while pushing and being able to actually feel/push a bit more effectively and quickly because of a lack of epidural helped me get her out as quickly and well as I did.
I’ve heard so many people say that it’s too much without an epidural or that Pitocin is unbearable without one and I just wanted to say that my very recent experience tells me that it doesn’t have to be that way. I prepared a lot and my baby was already very low so I’m sure that helped things move quickly and comfortably, but it was a far, far better experience than what I’ve heard from a lot of people. No matter what happens, trust your body and know that your birthing journey will be exactly what you and baby girl need. =)
@natashahoover:disqus first of all, congrats on baby’s arrival and thank you for sharing your experience! The more I read about having a baby in the US, I just think there’s way too much intervention when it comes to babies. Sometimes it’s called for and other times it’s absolutely unnecessary. I know that every pregnancy is different, but I just keep getting a sense that all pregnant women are put into the same pool instead of high and low risk. I’ve been low risk this entire pregnancy *knock on wood* it remains that way til she’s born.
I’ve been completely sharing about our prenatal care before we decided to have her in Slovenia because there was just a lot of opinions involved that made it stressful. We were pretty disappointed at the MTF at the air force base in Italy, when upon bringing all my updated labs from DC, the doctors were unable to read/understand my labs. That was 100% not comforting at all and to be constantly told that it’s highly recommended to have your child there … yeah no thanks.
Hypnobirthing is so fascinating to me and I think I definitely want to give that a try next time around. We changed our doctors more than halfway through my pregnancy and unsure about my local resources, that it wasn’t something I wanted to dive into. But I’ve heard a lot of positive things about it. We’re totally winging things this time around and just taking things from there.
I hope your recovery is going well, hugs to you both!
I agree completely – my husband and I have repeatedly discussed how everyone gets harassed and tested for all these random, unlikely things and treated like you’re high risk when you’re not! The ‘worst’ thing that happened to me was literally one high blood pressure reading weeks ago that was probably because the machine malfunctioned and everything was fine a couple minutes later (but people still kept bringing it up, even on Friday!). I’m so glad you also made the decision to switch to providers more in line with your personal situation and beliefs instead of being bullied by the military hospital system!! Best of luck with your final weeks of pregnancy!!!
I’ve delivered with an epidural and without and without was so hard. I burst a blood vessel in my eye pushing – every contraction I was like “just cut him out!” and then during the break I was apologizing for acting so crazy. I say, get a low-dose epidural where you can still feel the pressure and some contractions but the edge is taken off. I had that kind twice and they were my easiest deliveries. If you get one and you’re too numb ask the dr to pull back on the meds. The pain is less and it wears off faster.