Hi there folks.
I'll try be brief describing all of this - I can be very wordy (sorry!) - by all means skip the middle; there's some questions at the end which have us scratching our heads if anyone had any interest.
My wife is a little over a month pregnant. We got some good info here on this site on what maternity hospital to pick in Belfast which is great so thanks very much (we ended up picking the Royal). As it happens though, we have a bunch of questions which we can't seem to get a straight answer on, so would be fantastic to pick the brains of any of you who have been through it before.
This mostly relates to arranging for a 3 month scan.
When my wife found out she was pregnant about 2 weeks ago, she called her GP and reception there told her she needed to fill out a self referral for the Royal, which she did immediately.
At the end of last week after not hearing back from the Royal, my wife called the GP again and a different receptionist told her that she needed to speak to the GP too as they need to send a referral form also. This was initially scheduled for the 21st of June, so 2 weeks after that phone call.
Luckily, my wife managed to speak to a GP today after calling yet again who agreed to send on a referral to the Royal, and also to schedule her in for a blood test this week as she is extraordinarily tired - the energy levels you would have mid-flu.
This GP is ordinarily very good, but every medical professional so far has seemed bizarrely....uninterested?
Events we noted which triggered this post:
- When first calling the GP, the initial receptionist did not seem to be aware of who needed to know about the pregnancy, just to fill out the Royal self referral if choosing that maternity ward.
- The 2nd time calling the GP, a visit to the GP was originally scheduled for 2 weeks away which seemed far for them to just fill out a pregnancy referral form.
- The actual GP seemed sort of bothered instead caring when my wife spoke to them today. They said they would fill out a referral this week, but also said very flatly "mmm, we prefer the Ulster here for our patients" and didn't seem to believe my wife had the energy of an elderly snail.
- We cannot get through to the Royal maternity wing - at all. The phone just rings and rings. If my wife did not originally call the GP back about the referral, we would have had no idea that the GP needed to send in their own one. We still are not sure if/when the Royal are meant to get back to us.
After all this, we're actually quite worried that we don't know what we need to know and we are potentially skipping steps we don't know about.
- Have we contacted everyone we need to contact - as in the GP & the Royal self referral form - or are we missing anyone?
- Have any of you felt that your GP or maternity clinic didn't keep you informed? Just want to know if it's normal to have to hunt out info or if we're overthinking.
- Did any of you experience a complete and total lack of energy just 2 weeks into your pregnancy?
- My wife has also had morning sickness (the feeling, not actually being sick) every day morning to night - is that normal?
- When would you expect your GP / maternity clinic to confirm a form has been received, and for a scan to be scheduled?
If we're just being panicky here then that's fine - no doubt the Royal is a very busy place - we just want to hear from any of you on your experiences, and whether we're expecting too much contact too soon from GP & the Royal.
People give birth all the time so it's no new thing for a hospital, but it's new for us so we're curious if this is normal and if you were equally as concerned with the level of contact you had with medical professionals.
Thanks very much if you read this far!