Baby in UK or US? Plus some antenatal queries..

[eandz]

Hello everyone!

We're due with our first in September (hopefully find out if its ds or dd next week!) and are trying to figure out where to have the pregnancy.

After some bleeding a few weeks ago, we have been private (via AXA PPP) with Dr Economides (delivers at the Portland), who we have been very happy with following some unpleasantness at St Mary's (they get really angry when you suggest you're considering private and told us we'd miscarried before an ultrasound ).

For the actual birth, our Blue Cross, Blue Shield US insurance will cover us fully (although by reimbursement only for the UK, has anyone else used this?). The Portland also seemed a bit dark and dingy compared to the maternity wards in Texas, so financially and for environment we're considering delivering in the US.

Has anyone else flown abroad for delivery and if so, how did you find it? We're considering going at 30 weeks to get to know the obstetrician there.

Also, in the meantime, although we've switched our consultant over to private for scans etc, should we be receiving any service from the NHS for ante-natal queries/classes etc? We haven't heard anything since our gp referred us and feel kinda bad asking him questions at random times that end up being standard things.

Thank you all for your help!

expat I always saw the GYN whenever I went. I don't think I ever saw the nurse.

MrsBadger I don't think eandz meant just to go to the doctor for the hell of it, but it's just a general health check up. You also have a pap every year in the states - I was really shocked when I got here and was told that they wouldn't do one every year.

I suppose it's different if you're paying for it - I would have terrible middle-class pinko-lefty guilt about Wasting NHS Resources.

well, i guess i should also explain that i have Junior Rheumatoid Arthritis and I've always tried to avoid doctors.

My mom always told me it was normal...i didn't question her, she can get scary.

but none of my friends had jra and they still got stuck going to the doctors.

I think being seen for a general health check up once a year is probably less of a drain on resources than having something serious creep up on you and need to be taken care of. But I guess that's the chance that the NHS takes because not everyone will have something serious creep up. But really, you ARE paying for the NHS through your taxes, you might as well use the service they provide.

I only saw a GYN once, when I needed LEEP treatment.

But, I was one of those people who went to Planned Parenthood and had Kaiser insurance when I had it.

Worked for me! It was a smear test at PP that detected my CINII. Got treated there for free, too, because UCHSC got a grant to research what became the Guardasil vaccine, so in exchange for donated tissue samples, I got a colpo and LEEP gratuit and a very senior onco consultant doing my LEEP.

FWIW, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have changed teh guidelines for smear tests and women over 30 who have had three normal tests in a row can move to having them every other year or every three years.

Women who reach 65 and have had 10 normal tests in a row can forgo them altogether.

How about an independent midwife? Pure birth-heaven on wheels!

I had my DD in a private hospital in Cincinnati. It was not super luxurious, and actually fairly tatty. The delivery bed was the kind where half of it disappears when you are about to give birth (very awkward when you are a hands-and-knees person). To sleep in this was horrible. I just couldn't wait to be discharged.

I had my DD at around 9pm on a Sunday night, and there was no food for me . The most they could offer was dry cereal. No tea and toast . It took them 4 hours to get me some paracetamol for afterpains (take your own) - maybe they were in a strop that I didn't have an epidural. And they woke us up every hour for obs.

To cap it all, the remote control for the TV didn't work. . $4000 for 18 hours.

'No tea and toast '

That would SUCK! Because after pregnancy putting me off tea for 9 months, that cuppa after giving birth is bliss. Best bits of toast in the world, too - real butter.

And before the afterpains even kicked in with DD2, they came me some co-codamol. I thanked them later!

Hmm, we'll see, but it's looking like Paisley for us.

Plus, I'm too lazy to go through all that passport paperwork straightaway, airport security and the like. I just want to lie in bed using breastfeeding as an excuse to do sweet FA and have glasses of wine brought to me of an evening.

Yeah, can you imagine what afterpains are like with #5? Worse than labour pains!

As for passports...in the US, you don't get the birth certificate same day, as you do in the UK. You have to wait for the hospital to send it to the county, and this can take two weeks. Then you can apply for a passport, which is a further 8 weeks. A US citizen has to leave the US on a US passport.

expat - make sure it's a GOOD red burgundy. According to my midwife that's very good for your iron levels. Along with dark chocolate. I loved my midwives

eandz - I think you've answered you're own question on birth location. I'd look into how much personalisation of the room the Portland will let you do. Incl. own bedding, own pillows, own birth ball, music, pictures, even a couple of camping mats to cushion the floor in case you decide the bed isn't so appealing (I spent most of my labour on my knees, draped over DH's lap). I'd also seriously recommend doing some kind of hypnotherapy (I used the Natal Hypnotherapy effective birth preparation CD) - at best it will help you stay calm during the birth and at worst it's a way to make sure you get some rest towards the end of your pregnancy .

Oh, that's it then. I'm not hanging round there for ages and ages waiting for that, especially as I'd have to leave DH with the girls.

Plus, the UK national has to enter and leave on a UK passport, so that would involve even more waiting round for him/her to get that.

And I'll bet they won't make you tea and toast after the birth.

I even pack my own travel kettle in my hospital Uhaul bag, wee singles of milk, sugar, Tetley bags and my Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh plastic cup so I can savour a cuppa as I like afterwards.

Oh, I lay in a supply of fine wine and easy to prepare nibbles - think M&S frozen stuff, for the evening marathon feeds.

DH or my mum join in waiting on me nibbling/drinking (in my mother's case). Actually, I love it when she shows up, because her case is usually loaded with Napa Valley's finest .

The No Tea and Toast thing would clinch it for me.

Nothing, but nothing has ever tasted as good as the tea with three sugars and white toast with cheap strawberry jam that they brought me after I'd been in labour for 24 hours with dd1.

[drool emoticon]

actually, the beds in at the portland hospital are the ones where half of it pulls away during labor. i didn't get up to try it so i don't know how comfortable it is...i'm going back next weekend so i'll hop on as a precaution. they cant really stop me right?

has anyone given birth at the portland?

You can get an expedited passport in a day in both the usa and the uk. You wouldn't want to take a newborn baby (our yourself) on a plane anyway for at least a couple of weeks. I gave birth in the uk so my dh could be there. If I had it to do all over again, I would have had both children in the usa without dh. I was also left without food after both my births (well prepared by the second one). The first one involved a 40 hour labor, so I was pretty hungry, but arrived on the delivery ward too late for dinner and as I found out the next morning, since I was too late to order my breakfast, they wouldn't give me that either. I did get offered tea (but they were out of biscuits). I had a friend in london whose dh was muslim, so she had her boys circumcised. It was done by a jewish guy (guess there are more of them around) and generally appears to be pretty painless (by her account) as they only make the littlest cut and then put a ring around the penis and eventually the extra skin just falls off.

I thought the Portland was the most depresssingly grey hospital I had ever seen. And the beds looked awful. I'm sure there would be no "natural" alternative there.

you can't eat during labor? I always eat under stress...

that's something else you might want to talk to them about. A lot of hospitals don't like you to eat during labour - their logic as I understand it is that they might need to give you a general anaesthetic in a hurry and there's a risk you'll choke if you've eaten recently. However, I think there's been more recent research that suggests the risk of choke under GA was when they used ether and choloroform, and with modern anaesthetics the risk is minimal.

"Labour" is so called for a reason. It's hard work. A lot of midwives will recommend you eat during labour to keep your strength up. Just be aware that you might want to pack snacks (or more!) in your hospital bag - I don't know what the catering is like in the Portland, but at NHS hospitals the food would be unlikely to be at a convenient time or appealing...

You can eat if you want to (unless they thinnk you will be likely to need a cs). I just threw it all up about 5 hours into the whole thing. It's kind of like trying to eat while doing a marathon. Bring ice and lots of water if you are in the uk (my hospital didn't have drinking water readily available). Bring food that you will like for afterwards. (this applies for either us or uk)

I think that you're more likely to be "allowed" to eat in the UK than the US. I would highly recommend glucose tablets and Ribena - I was really sick in labour and they were the only things that kept me going during a long labour.

Yes, perhaps, but you are less likely to be provided with something to eat.
But as you said, you really don't feel like eating when you are in labor. You just need something to keep your energy up.

would pro plus work? or am i just being stupid?

eandz,
They probably wouldn't let you eat in labor here in the US, but they would let you do clear liquids (broths, liquids, ice pops). They wouldn't let you have anything if you are on a pitocin drip, so if you're induced in the US eat like you've never eaten before in your life before you go in. If you go in in early labor they will let you have something.

Good luck with your decision.

I don't think you'd have pro plus as wouldn't all that caffeine pass to the baby? Not ideal.

I just figured at that point food would just stop passing to the baby through me since he'd be on his way out? Sorry, I'm novice at anything related to pregnancy except the fact that my belly is huge and I can't stop eating.