Midwife appt #1

I had my first midwife appointment today. In England, all your primary care is done through your GP. I don't have an OB--all previous gynecological care has been through my GP (birth control, smears, etc). Now that I'm pregnant, I get referred to a team of midwives who work in my local area. There are 5 on the team, and I will have one main contact, Mara, who works in partnership with one other midwife (Uwa), but I will eventually get to meet the entire team should one of mine be on leave. They do most appointments at my home which is nice. I will be referred to the hospital when I need ultrasounds (standard ones are at 11-13 weeks and 18-20 weeks).

So I met with Mara today, she was very nice and reassuring. We ran through my medical history and filled out a heap of forms. She then took blood and urine samples and took my blood pressure (118/63). She answered all my questions and gave me a bunch of booklets and things on pregnancy. Apparently there is a pregnancy epidemic in my area and she wants to organise a movie night for all the expectant moms, which is sweet. They also run weekly antenatal aqua-aerobics, but unforutnately the class is during lunch and I don't work nearby. All in all, everything was fairly straightforward. I don't have a lot of high risk factors, which is good. I should be getting my appointment letter for an ultrasound soon--very exciting.

I also met with my trainer (Fiona) this morning. She worked with me throughout my marathon training and is very good (I did finish!). She loves working with pregnant moms, and it's a real shame that she's moving back to New Zealand in a few weeks. I hope to squeeze in another session or two before she goes. She's going to write up some workouts for me and she briefed me on the three main things not to do: jumping (due to impact), over the head exercises (raises your blood pressure), and exercises lying on your back (it puts pressure on the oxygen supply to the baby). She also says not to do ab exercises (but there are mixed views on this one). So far in my pregnancy I've been running about 3 times a week for 35-45 mins (4-5 miles). I'm much slower than during marathon training (no surprise), and I'll probably only keep the running up for about another month. I'm going start going back to the gym and do weight training and when I can't run anymore do low impact cardio (swimming, walking, elliptical, etc). Today was the first weight training I've done in about 2 months and I can already feel the lactic acid building up, but will just have to tough it out as I'm not allowed ibuprofen (but can take paracetemol if necessary).

We're pregnant!

...and very excited. I'm at 11 weeks, which means the little one is due March 17th--St Patrick's day! I know a lot of friends and family are curious about healthcare in the UK, so I thought I'd start this blog now, so I can share our experiences. Not that I know anything about having a baby in the US, but all you moms over there will, so you'll have to let me know the differences.

The timing for us has been very fortunate in that we already had a scheduled trip to the States to my parent's beach house in Hilton Head, so we were able to tell my parents in person, which was the best:). To tell them we had a baby bib printed which said Hilton Head beach baby, which we wrapped in silver with a pink bow (all I had) so my dad's convinced it'll be a girl. My brother came down a couple days after him so we prepared a dinner of sliders (baby hamburgers), baby potatoes, baby corn, cherry tomato salad, but he only caught on when my dad accidentally slipped and asked me if I wanted a virgin sea breeze. It was classic, he was shocked. Later that night we conferenced my sisters who weren't coming for another week to tell them over the phone. They were full of squeals and Kim even moved her flight up a couple of days because she was so excited. Here are some photos from our trip:

The weekend after we got back (which was last weekend) we headed down to Eastbourne to tell Paul's parents. For them, we bought a t-shirt for David, which said World's Greatest Grandpa. They were equally pleased to hear our news. And we called Paul's brother and sister-in-law (Sam and Sian) on Sunday and spoke to Sam, the news seemed to sink in as we talked to him and he got more and more excited. Here's a photo of them opening the gift: