We had our first Dr. appointment today at the Klinikum (hospital) and it was interesting for the most part. The doctor said everything looks fine, and the baby had a strong heart beat.
A few things are REALLY different in Germany as opposed to the states...
1) they don't wear gloves to do anything... to draw blood, to do a pap smear... nothing...
2) You have to ask for a gown, I guess in Germany when you go to Dr. you just lay butt naked on the table for them. However the nurse informed me that they keep gowns available "for Americans"... damn prudes!
3) Guys you may want to stop reading now... I had to most interesting pap smear of my life... I don't even know where to start... it was umm... awful? There are none of those clampers.. just like two smooth hooks and a different nurse holds each one of the hooks pulling in opposite directions... enough said.
4) They only have what they call a "walking epidural" during labor... which means you can walk while you have the epidural... not much of an epidural if you ask me. So, we will see as we get farther along in this how I feel about having the baby in Germany vs. going back to Texas. I am very intimidated by the differences in the two places, and am very nervous about the fake epidural, because lets face it... labor is cake with the right drugs and hell without them!
5) They take blood every 3-4 weeks. I may be wrong, but with Clara I think I only had to get blood drawn two or three times... They take blood every 3-4 weeks without gloves... The health dept. would be all over that in the US!
6) Of course there is the whole unit of measurement thing... but that's an easy one... They kept asking me if I knew my height and weight and Clara's height and weight at birth in metric units... I did not.. so they converted each time, not a big deal. P.S.. I like my weight a lot more in Kilograms :)
Thats enough complaining for now! Gotta get to cleaning this mess now that we are all back from the dead... AKA stomach flu!
Tschüs!
We will keep you all posted
1 comment:
We are very excite for all of you and can't wait to hear more! We love you all!! Give Clara a kiss for all of us!!
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