First Prenatal Visits

Well I've gotten through the first round of prenatal visits. On Thursday I went to visit with Ann my community midwife, now, she won't actually be the one delivering our little one but she'll be my main contact for care. We took about 45 minutes to go through about 20 pages of paperwork. One of the big differences over here is that you personally keep your preganancy "notes" (or files) which I think is pretty scary since during pregnancy your mind goes a little crazy, I'm totally afraid that I'll misplace them. Ann is pretty cool and she also worked with Stacey and Marti (the two other ISEs who recently had babies over here).

On Tuesday, Kevin went with me to the Peterborough hospital to get my 12 week scan (ultrasound). The first thing that alarmed me was that you had to pay to park - 2 GBP for the first hour - 10 pounds for 24 hours (that was the maximum time on the meter) and the car park was very small. When my friend Stacey went into labour it took her husband almost an hour to finally find a place to park...I could see why. As Kevin and I walked in to the maternity ward there was a woman walking out in her bathrobe and slippers followed by her husband and a brand spanking new baby....probably only a few hours old on their way home.

As we waited in the holding area it hit me on how worldly of a place I was actually in. There were all sorts of people there waiting to see a little glimpse of their new little life. Some of them needed translators, some of them were like us and didn't understand all the "English" terms and had to ask the receptionist for help. We finally got called back into our room where a technicial did the ultrasound and showed us up on the TV screen our fully formed little baby. After doing some measurements she determined that I was actually a little further along so she bumped up my due date to August 22nd. In the States, when I had ultrasounds with Addison they printed off about 6 pictures each time and sent me on my way. Here they print out your pictures, but you are to pay for them. You get your scan pictures and then before you check out you put 4 GBP in a vending machine to get a stamp to show as a reciept that you paid for them. Our technician didn't charge us for ours because she said the baby wasn't in a very good position...we were gracious but thought the pictures looked wonderful.