We had our first regular appointment with our midwife yesterday. She checked on Speck's position (still head-down and waiting patiently; SO unlike her mother) and size - estimated weight is about 5 pounds - before hooking me up to a fetal heartrate monitor. Speck was happily sleeping when we began, but woke up and put on a show once she realized someone was watching. We went through a full cycle of activity before she settled back down; in the meantime, she was moving and kicking so actively that both Tim and our midwife could see my belly moving. It's still such an odd sensation - the realization that there's a whole other little person inside there, who moves around on her own. Everything checked out just great, including a urine test for sugar (totally negative), which was a relief after last week's OB appointment.
Tonight we have our first pre-delivery class, which our midwife will lead, with two other American couples. We're looking forward to it!
In the meanwhile, I'm finishing packing up my office and moving back to the Embassy annex out near our house, which is where I worked until last May. There are space issues at play here - we'll need my downtown office for someone else - but in the meanwhile it means I trade my 45-60 minute commute on the train for a 5-10 minute walk to work. I'm excited about having a bit of quiet to work on the remaining massive projects I have to complete before we leave in June... and of course, I'm terribly excited about going back to work in May just around the corner from home. Until delivery, though, it also puts me just a 5-minute drive from the hospital, which is a good thing.
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In other news, we bid a sad farewell to our friends Melissa and Jeremy earlier this week. We had such a great time with them! I'm so glad they could come. It turns out that Jeremy has a secret passion for golden retrievers, so was thrilled to spend time with Minka. Melissa's not as much of a dog person, but was excited to see our kitties, especially Vanya - she's known him for more than 10 years now. Minka has been in a bit of a funk since they left; I think she just misses the extra attention. Not that our dog is spoiled or anything...
Showing posts with label midwife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label midwife. Show all posts
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Midwifery
Our learning process continues! We've already learned a lot about how the whole process, from conception to post-partum care, is different in Germany, but we still have much to learn.
One thing we've discovered is that most of the heavy lifting during the delivery process is done not by the obstetrician, or even by the labor and delivery nurses, but by midwives. Each mother-to-be is assigned a midwife ("Hebamme", in German) at the hospital, who is responsible for checking on you, monitoring your labor, delivering the baby (with the doctor in the room, but the midwife will actually be in the catcher's position, so to speak), and coordinating post-delivery care for you and the baby. Now, we made very certain to find an English-speaking doctor, many moons ago. That seemed too important to risk to my German skills. But what about a midwife?
It turns out that you can bring in your own! In addition to the staff midwives who are on duty at the hospital, there's a list of midwives with privileges at each hospital. If you want, you can make arrangements with one of them to be on-call for your delivery - to meet you at home or at the hospital, and go forward from there. It's a slightly more expensive option, but when push comes to shove (ha ha), we really want to make sure the key people in the room speak our language!
So we got a recommendation from our doctor, and met yesterday with the midwife he suggested. Katrin O'Malley is a lovely lady of German and Irish parentage, who did most of her training in Germany but worked in Ireland for several years as well - which also means she's more comfortable than I think many German midwives would be with some of the ideas and questions we have, coming from our American context. She's seen various ways of practicing medicine, and recognizes that the German way, great as it is, isn't the only possible way to do things.
This also means that we'll be able to do pre-natal classes, since those offered by our hospital are all in German. Katrin has two other American couples she'll be working with, and suggested getting all of us together for two intensive class sessions. We're relieved that we won't have to miss out on these classes. And I'm super relieved to have found a midwife! From what I've been able to read online, she'll be very important to this whole process. I've been stressing for a while about how that would work, and am so relieved to have checked this particular box!
Speaking of which, one of the many routine services she'll be able to provide for us is pre-registration at the hospital - so when the time comes, we can just waltz on in and not have to worry about paperwork. She even gave us the consent forms for epidural and other anesthesia to fill out in advance, so that's taken care of. The less paperwork in German we have to confront when we're in labor, the happier we'll both be!
One thing we've discovered is that most of the heavy lifting during the delivery process is done not by the obstetrician, or even by the labor and delivery nurses, but by midwives. Each mother-to-be is assigned a midwife ("Hebamme", in German) at the hospital, who is responsible for checking on you, monitoring your labor, delivering the baby (with the doctor in the room, but the midwife will actually be in the catcher's position, so to speak), and coordinating post-delivery care for you and the baby. Now, we made very certain to find an English-speaking doctor, many moons ago. That seemed too important to risk to my German skills. But what about a midwife?
It turns out that you can bring in your own! In addition to the staff midwives who are on duty at the hospital, there's a list of midwives with privileges at each hospital. If you want, you can make arrangements with one of them to be on-call for your delivery - to meet you at home or at the hospital, and go forward from there. It's a slightly more expensive option, but when push comes to shove (ha ha), we really want to make sure the key people in the room speak our language!
So we got a recommendation from our doctor, and met yesterday with the midwife he suggested. Katrin O'Malley is a lovely lady of German and Irish parentage, who did most of her training in Germany but worked in Ireland for several years as well - which also means she's more comfortable than I think many German midwives would be with some of the ideas and questions we have, coming from our American context. She's seen various ways of practicing medicine, and recognizes that the German way, great as it is, isn't the only possible way to do things.
This also means that we'll be able to do pre-natal classes, since those offered by our hospital are all in German. Katrin has two other American couples she'll be working with, and suggested getting all of us together for two intensive class sessions. We're relieved that we won't have to miss out on these classes. And I'm super relieved to have found a midwife! From what I've been able to read online, she'll be very important to this whole process. I've been stressing for a while about how that would work, and am so relieved to have checked this particular box!
Speaking of which, one of the many routine services she'll be able to provide for us is pre-registration at the hospital - so when the time comes, we can just waltz on in and not have to worry about paperwork. She even gave us the consent forms for epidural and other anesthesia to fill out in advance, so that's taken care of. The less paperwork in German we have to confront when we're in labor, the happier we'll both be!
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