Maternity Care

Well, I'm 18 weeks now and I've finally had my uterus measured and my pee checked for proteins. Still not yet had any blood taken. Apparently part in due to the fact that it's my third and also because I didn't know how to work the system here.

Generally, everyone has free health care in the UK. It's called NHS or National Health Insurance. Everyone registers with a GP in their area - we were lucky that there is a really good practice in our area (they only cover those in a certain geographic area) and they were accepting new patients. If I hadn't gotten in, I think we would have figured out the private insurance route. So, you call, make your appt and it's free. Even prescriptions for kids under 16 and pregnant woman are free. There is a catch though - the system is overloaded and burdened. People that have had to deal with more serious issues, have to push, push but not push too hard, the system to get the doctors/specialists they need.

Anyway, I always knew that if we had a third, I would not want to have it in a hospital. My belief is that hospitals are for sick people (and antibiotic resistant bacteria) and no place to have a baby - esp when it's your third. If we had still been in the states, I would have done the birth center but they don't really have birth centers here (there is something CALLED a birth center but it's really just a practice next to a hospital and costs about £7,000 = $14K).

So the usual way it goes here is that you see your GP and then tell them which hospital you want to give birth at (choice of three in the area). Then the hospital writes you to tell you of when your scan/ultrasound is going to be, and the appropriate hospital midwife (OBGYNS are only brought in for c-sections) team calls you to book your appointments, which are in a clinic, only on Sat and Sun mornings. You alternate your visits between your GP and your midwife. So, I knew I didn't want to have a hospital birth, reinforced by the absolute HORRIBLE stories I heard from many women - for example: four to seven woman (woman from all walks of life mind you) a room (with babies) during their stay. Overcrowded and germy. Even if you go private and pay the extra, you just have a nicer room, but a place can't always be guaranteed.

You can also use one of the hospital midwife teams if you plan on doing a homebirth, but if they are busy, they can tell you to come in to the hospital instead. So, I found a great private, indepedent midwife for my homebirth. She asked me why I want to have a homebirth and I kinda surprised myself with the voice that responded, "Because I think that's the safest place to have my baby." The midwives come to my house for my check ups, measuring, questions, pee test but don't do blood. They can arrange it to be done, but what I should have done (per another home birthing mom's suggestion), was stay in the NHS loop as that enables me to get what I need out of that system, but at the same time getting the homebirth midwives' care. So now I've had to call the hospital midwives back up and say "Um, I've changed my mind" which feels quite terrible to lie. So now they can schedule me to go to the hospital to have my blood drawn.

My most exciting news is that I finally felt the baby!! I had started to feel a possible something a few times Monday, but last night as I was lying in bed, I really felt it. It was wonderful. I started giggling - it almost tickled. Just felt like s/he was doing log rolls. Puts a smile on my face just writing about it.