Wow, this
poor blog has been so neglected lately! Time
to remedy that. The past year has been
busy and often exciting, but I have also had trouble getting myself to sit at
the computer and type about it. I’ll
blame the pregnancy. (Bad pregnancy! Stop shrinking my brain so much and making
me a professional couch potato!!)
Seriously though, the past several months have been rough, but I think
I’ve gotten through the worst of it.
Which means, I can sit at the computer and type out a nice long blog
entry again! And guess what I want to
tell y’all about this time… (I know
you’ll be surprised!) Being pregnant!! In Brazil. J
I want to reassure everyone out there that the doctors here are not actually monkeys, and do not operate with blowdarts. And with about 4 months still to go, I think
it’s safe to say that this will be a “Part 1.”
After we
returned from our trip to the US last fall, I had my first doctor appointment
here in Brazil. My very kind friend/boss
helped to set it up with someone she recommended, as I knew I wanted to get in
ASAP! Morning sickness (HA! such a
misnomer…) tends to hit me hard and hang around a long time, so I already
planned on asking for medicine to help manage it. When we went to the appointment, it was at
the office of one particular doctor.
(With my first, I chose a specific primary doctor who worked in a clinic
with several others. I often had appointments with the other doctors and personnel of the clinic, rather than my preferred doctor.) There were 2
people working in this office: the
secretary and the doctor himself. There
were no assistants who took me back to weigh in and go through screening
questions, etc. When I was called back
for my appointment, we went directly into the room where my doctor was seated
at his desk and ready to talk to us. He
asked some questions, and we asked some, and then it was time for the exam,
about which I will spare you the details.
All of the equipment used at the US Clinic on my previous appointments
was actually available right there in this office. (With the exception of lab for blood work,
which is done at a different location.)
He performed the ultrasound himself and talked to us about what he was
observing and looking for. Afterwards,
he again asked if we had any questions or other worries to discuss with
him. I would estimate that he spent at
least 30 minutes, maybe closer to an hour just with us. I don’t think I have EVER spent more than 15
minutes in the same room as a doctor during an appointment in the US… okay, with the possible exception of the
actual delivery. And I totally get that
there are reasons for it. I’m just saying,
it was so nice to feel like our doctor really knows us and our situation and he cares about making us feel comfortable with everything. There was no
feeling of rushing, or having to sit alone in a waiting room whatsoever. I felt a little spoiled. J
We have had
several appointments since the first, and each of them have been equally
pleasant and informative experiences. This
being a new experience for me in a new country, I have been (and still am)
pretty nervous about what will happen over the next several months, and
especially labor & delivery. So I usually
have lots of questions for him. One of
the first things I learned is that in Brazil, Epidurals are MUCH less
common. It’s not that you can’t get
them, just that apparently very few women do. And they are not covered by insurance. He told me that there are other meds available
though, to help manage labor pain, which are probably less effective but still
helpful. (Probably kind of like taking
Tylenol for a migraine…) Also, delivery
by C-section is VERY common here. I don’t
think the doctor actually came out and said that, but practically every mom I
have met has said that they had C-sections to deliver their babies. One thing my doctor did say is that while
there are ‘Birthing Classes’ available here, he does not recommend any of
them. He says they seem to brain-wash
all participants into thinking they must have a C-section. So that could be part of the reason for the
high rate of C-sections. He also
informed me that inducing is practically nonexistent here, that it is VERY rare
that a doctor here would actually induce labor. Ever.
Under any circumstance. This was
actually a good thing, in my mind, as my previous experience with induction was…
well… not great. In the end, if there is
any amount of risk involved with the delivery, pretty much the answer is
C-section. Kinda scary, so I’m really
hoping there are no complications whatsoever (well, duh!
Nothing new there, I guess) and that THIS time, labor time might go down
from 36 hours to maybe, oh I dunno, 3!
By the way, I did get
the prescription I requested for the anti-vomiting/nausea meds, and apparently
just in time as the morning sickness hit hard within the next week of that
appointment. The doctor did tell us that
Zofran (which I used last time around) was not actually available here, but
that there was another medicine (Vonau) with the same active ingredient which he
would prescribe for me. The biggest
difference is that I had to take it about every 8 hours, instead of 1
daily. And it’s quite costly! A box of 10 pills can cost more than R$45,
about $20-25 American dollars. (Having
insurance gives a discount, but prescriptions are normally not covered.) So at 3 pills/day, about 90/month, that’s about
R$400, or US$200 per month. Eeks!! After several days, it turned out that this
medicine wasn’t very effective and we had to try something else. I ended up using 2 different meds together,
one of which being the expensive one.
Our total per month then has been about US$225. Thankfully the nausea and vomiting has let up
a lot recently (starting about my 5th month) so I am able to cut
back and not take as many as often. Now, I know that with our insurance in the US last time around, my generic version
of Zofran was probably around $20/month.
So I guess it’s pretty safe to say we pay more for prescriptions here,
BUT we do not have a deductible to meet.
Okay, I am going to stop there as I do not want to get into boring old insurance details and whatnot. I guess what I have been trying to say is that while the actual pregnancy itself has been almost exactly the same as the first time around (so far), living in a different country has made some differences in the overall experience. I think before we moved here, I may have thought that having a baby in a foreign land would have sounded almost terrifying. But in reality, well, it’s no more terrifying than it was in the US. :)
