TTC and living overseas?

Welcome winterwombatland and happy new year to you too!

Sounds like you have been through a bit over there. I have to say every time I have a health problem (big or small it doesn't matter) I wish I were back in England and I could call NHS direct/go to my GP/go to the drop-in clinic. Currently suffering from a UTI and feeling sorry for myself (and a bit sad, as this was the first month that DH is back and we would be able to get back on the TTC wagon, yet I am unwell and it looks like no ov this month either

Anyway, hope this year brings us all sticky beans!

Hi all and happy new year!

May I join you? I've been living in Dubai for 5 years now, married to lovely Kiwi and we have been ttc since Feb last year. 1 natural MC in June and 1 MMC with ERPC in Nov sadly but firmly back on the ttc bus now. Care during the first MC was pretty dire - 3 different doctors / consultants with no bedside manner and not much help.... 2nd MC was managed v well by my ob/gyn all the way through. Healthcare is private and provided by my company and I get to go on DH's company's scheme as well. It only covers up to a certain amount for certain ops etc. - we had to pay extra to get my ob/gyn to do the ERPC, but worth every penny (or should I say Dirham!)

Looking forward to getting to know you all. It looks as if this thread was started a while ago so perhaps there are some BFPs on here already - hope so!

hi everyone,

I just made it back to Costa Rica, 20 hour journey with a toddler wasnt much fun, but at least I am back in the glorious sunshine!

silkenladder what you have described sounds like antenatal heaven! Very of the care in Germany! During the course of my research on AS I discovered that outside of America, Germany is the best place to find AS specialists. There is only 1 in the UK, and before him many British women with AS travelled to Germany for treatment.

escapeartist at Greek doctors and their attitudes to cesarians! Its not much better over here, the public system does not offer epidurals which scares everyone who can afford it into going private. If you are paying you can chose natural or cesarian, so the hospitals have about 80% cesarian rate, this means that doctors hardly ever see natural births and are therefore not very good at doing them! Home birth is illegal so if you have one you have to lie and say the baby came really fast and you didnt have time to get to hospital! I am pinning my hopes on finding a good doctor who specialises in natural childbirth. Have to get pregnant first of course though...

That sounds all pretty good silkenladder
We are looking at Frankfurt, though hopefully we will go after we have had DC1 (though if it doesn't happen this year we might have to rethink and return to the UK for assistance)

Greece is a strange place. A friend was recently told by her doctor, that she should have a C section, as giving birth naturally would be like washing your clothes by hand, when you can put them in the washing machine!!!!

Thanks for the chair MummyBATW I'm hoping since I have had a period that the depo is wearing off, but I've started temping and haven't noticed any obvious rises or falls yet.

escapeartist I've been in Germany 10 years and I speak fluent German. I live in the former GDR and I was surprised to find that so many people here aren't that confident speaking English (which however helped me to learn German). I would expect that most drs in west Germany would speak pretty good English though, at least when talking about their fields of expertise.

The care during pregnancy here was great. There are GPs here (called Hausarzt), but there are also lots of specialists working in their own practices, so when you are pregnant you go straight to a "Frauenarzt" (OB/GYN). They have ultrasound and CTG machines at the surgery. I was scanned at my first appointment (3 days after the positive hpt), which I guess was to confirm the pregnancy and rule out an ectopic. The baby was too small to be seen at all at that point, so they made another appointment for 10 days later, at which point the heartbeat was visible. I continued to have scans at every appointment, plus I was referred to the hospital for a diagnostic scan at about 16 weeks. They wanted to do a CTG every week from 28 weeks, which I went along with, but I probably wouldn't bother second time round.

The ante-natal class was run by a midwife who was then responsible for my post-natal care. She came to see me every day for the first 10 days and then once a week until 8 weeks. I could have registered with a midwife much earlier in the pregnancy and had regular appointments with her as well, but I saw so much of the dr there didn't seem much point.

The only negative thing was the breastfeeding support in the hospital. I didn't feel there was any sort of concerted drive to encourage new mums to bf and although my own midwife was very strongly pro-bf, she wasn't around all day and the other midwives and nurses seemed to be waiting for me to give up and ask for a bottle. This is probably very different from hospital to hospital though.

Do you know where you would be moving to?

Welcome Silkenladder DH and I have been considering moving to Germany next, and the healthcare is def one of the pros on our list. Do you speak German or do docs generally speak English?

Did you give birth to DC1 in Germany? How was that experience?

Thanks silkenladder it's been quite a journey! I credit all my prolific posting helping me to get a diagnosis in the end too, thank you MN!

come in and make yourself comfy I will wait with you, how long does it take for depo to wear off?

I am thinking I really need to get some private healthcare insurance now.. It's a bit hard in CR as there is only one state run insurance company... I could end up paying more in premiums than I currently do on treatment.

2 more days till I get to swap the snow for sunshine!

Hi everyone. May I join you?

I live in Germany where the healthcare system is pretty good (they charge me a ridiculous amount for insurance because I work freelance, but the drs are great). I would like to be ttc-ing no. 2, but I'm still bfing DD (18m) and had an ill-advised shot of depo in the meantime, so am still waiting to start ovulating again.

MummyAbroad I have seen quite a few of your posts on my lurks around MN. I'm glad to hear that you've been treated and things are going in the right direction.

Do you guys find you just go to the doctor less? I would def go see my GP a lot more often than I venture to the doctor here. Also, it is difficult to see a GP, you get to see specialists more and sometimes you will go to the gynae, who will refer you to the endo, who will send you for a scan... which ends up costing almost 200 euros before you have even had any results.

Still, have private insurance through my work, but they do not cover for anything pregnancy related :(

Hello and welcome escape artist (love the name)

I have all the same problems as you in CR, shoddy public healthcare system and expensive OPK's... amazon helps enourmously though. I use the cheapie ones wheRe you get 25 for 5 pounds! I also have to pay private, but luckily it's much cheaper over there anyway. recently though my problems got so out of hand I had to come back to the UK. (and pay private here. Eeeeeek! )

However things are looking up as I now have been diagnosed and treated, I am on high dose hrt and have a coil fitted but it will be out in a month and I can start TTC again.

miss flick I am supposed to be going back on friday, snow permitting! HSG is useful to see if you have any structural problems, polyps, fibroids, cysts or in my case scar tissue. Many women report that they get pregnant after and hag, it seems to 'flush out your tubes" I am thinking about having one to see how successful my surgery was and give myself a bit of extra piece of mind. If you do it be sure to request antibiotics starting one day before the procedure to reduce risk of infection.

Morning all,

It's nice to have some TTC abroad friends!
I'll give you a brief history. Came off my pill last November with a view to ttcing around June so thought I was giving my cycle plenty of time to regulate. However periods are still irregular so I decided to get some tests done. Had all the blood tests for pcos, thyroid, prolactin, FSH, LH etc and all were normal. Internal scans also showed no pcos or other problems. My doctor diagnoised irregular ovulation and I have just done my first cycle of clomid which hasnt worked although it did show I'd ovulated. I'm wondering whether I should request a HSG?

mummy opks are quite easy to get here but I have long, irregular cycles so have never stuck with them! I am trying to conceive my first baby, how about you? When are you heading back to Costa Rica?

escapeartist I know how you feel about foreign healthcare! I don't even understand how the system works out here! My dh and I took out private insurance and I have been seeing a lovely gynae so have actually been receiving great care that I know I wouldn't have got in the UK.

Hello everyone!

I am in Greece at the moment! Have been ttc #1 since last Jan, though have missed several months due to two missed cycles after my father died, and 3 missed cycles as DH was working away for 2.5 months. So officially it's been about 6 months. Does not stop me worrying though...

Medical care here is v hit and miss. Feel we have to go private, not that private docs are better, it's just that it is so hard to get an appointment on Greek NHS - 6 weeks later just doesn't cut it when you need to see someone. I have felt very nervous about med care here in general, esp emergency care. Also, as we are living on one small salary at the moment, things are a bit tight and I will often not go to the doctor, when I would have in the UK...

Feel v jealous when people talk about seeing their GP and getting referrals on here - it kind of feels like a different world here. Although DH and I have decided if there ever was a reason we needed to get fertility treatment we would go back to the UK.

MissFlick I kow how you feel - I can't get myself to feel Xmassy with 23 degrees heat here either. Was looking for advent calendar high and low last week and have not found one :( but will be making my own tomorrow (in class, I am a primary teacher)

MummyBells had to laugh at your comment about getting OPK's abroad, as had to smuggle a load into Greece last time I visited. They are massively expensive here (about 50 euros for 7!!!) so I found it preferable to just got to Tesco's and get a load of cheapies. Then threw away the box and could not remember how to use...

Currently waiting for amazon delivery with Clearblue ones :)

Hello and welcome MissFlick

I have just popped over to England for medical care. It's just started snowing, looks really pretty but I'Ve seen enough now and can't wait to get back to sunny Costa Rica! So are you trying for baby number 1 MissFlick? What's Hong kong like? Easy to get OPK 's?

Helloooo, If you are reinstating this thread I'd like to join! I'm so missing the snow and festive build up in England :( I'm in Hong Kong and just not feeling Christmassy at all. Perhaps when I put my Christmas tree up tomorrow :)

Anyone still here? How are you all doing?

Hello,

I am TTC no. 3 (2 DDs, 5 and 7). Live in Poland, near Krakow.
I do occasionally peep at the TTC board but the sheer volume of abbreviations that are incomprehensible to me always makes me run away.
I am rather half-hearted about the TTC business this time round - am not doing anything. CAn't bring myself to over-medicalise something that - if it succeeds - will always be over-medicalised anyway. I also have private gynae treatment and I love my gynae (platonically, of course) but pregnancy and birth here is sooo doctor-centric that for now I just want to keep it low key (=throwing away condoms).
With the result that for the fourth month running I have spectacularly failed to get pregnant...
I also had a MMC, about 18 months ago now - sod's law - that one was unplanned, and now I have finally got DH's agreement to no. 3, nothing is happening.

NMCB hope you are still seeing good things in the window and good luck to all of us.

For some reason I lost this thread althogher! Came back from holiday and couldn't find it for love of trying.

(Waves back to Milano, Wondered when you'd join us!)

Good luck tomorrow MA what a nightmare for you it's been.

Hello Justmee. Nice to have a new friend to play with .

I got me a quiet BFP on Friday, a whole day before ERTD was due. Not getting to excited yet though. If I still have it this time next week I'll start to relax and get excited. Have been back to the Drs and nagged at them to help me not lose this one and while there isn't any real paln of action I feel supported and like I'm not just some over anxious mess.

hello all yay more people over seas to share our experiances!! :D

3 mc and now struggling to get pregnant again living in Turkey and finding going private is eating a biggg whole in my pocket and confussing as i dont understand what most is being said or done!! What would i do without mumsnet!! i had a very bad experiance with my first mc and changed my doctor after sleepless nights im now liking my current doctor but of corse its not the same as the uk..:(

hope you are all ok :D xxx