Considering he could really come any day now, it's about time!
I've referenced the "finding out" of the pregnancy in prior posts, but there are some fun details I left out since those posts weren't really focused on it specifically, so to backtrack and recap:
John left for ALC in May-June, leaving B and I to travel around to CO, OK, MS, and FL seeing a ton of friends and family along the way.
John and I had been talking on and off about trying to have another baby once we originally got back to NC, knowing Brynlee needed a sibling and when would be the best time to try. We actually even had the talk about her being an only, especially since before Germany orders came through, John was one foot out the door to get out of the Army and go back and finish school.
The last thing we wanted, if he got out, was to have another kid or one on the way.
So once Germany came into the picture and we decided to go for it, I got off the pill when he left for Missouri and that was that thinking by the time we got to Germany and settled the medication would be out of my system and we'd see what happened.
John left.
B and I traveled.
John got home.
Plans in motion for Germany were in full swing, and it took a friend calling me out on it to realize I could actually be pregnant.
I kept pushing it off, thinking there was no way and I wasn't even sure I was late at all, but Steph kept nagging me that my time frames seemed off and I needed to double check.
So I went to my calendar and flipped back to the previous month...nothing...flipped back again...nothing...flipped back again....and finally there was the last cycle I had which was right when John left for Missouri.
Well dang, I guess there is really no other explanation.
I went and got some tests and took one when I got home.
It immediately came up positive and I literally laughed out loud.
What in the world.
I'm moving from this continent in less than a month.....I went out and showed it to John who was so shocked it was almost offensive, haha.
He literally laid on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, and muttered for a good two hours.
It wasn't until the next day that he even acknowledged it and said he was excited, poor guy.
It seemed almost as soon as we found out, the nausea and bloating set in.Something I hardly ever experienced with B.
Suddenly meat and dairy, I couldn't even look at them.
I lived off ramen, ritz crackers, sprite, saltines, and gatorade for pretty much the rest of our time in America.
Having our home packed up for Europe definitely didn't strike any sympathy notes.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my uncle died shortly after we found out, and I'm still just so thankful I got to share this news with him before he passed.
With our limited time in the States upon us, I was able to get in to see a doctor a few days before leaving for our post move leave to Oklahoma/Colorado. Here I was able to get a memo from the Army Clinic stating I was indeed pregnant and the estimated due date was early March.
Here's where it kinda gets comical and kinda pathetic all at once!
Despite me being on the pill and John being gone, the clinic wouldn't really listen to me about the estimated due date not being accurate because it was being based off my last cycle.
I know that's what they are supposed to do, but it wasn't physically/scientifically possible since John wasn't here!
Me: "I know you are saying early March in these papers, but I'm just telling you that's not possible, my husband was gone to a school in Missouri."
Nurse: "Well my dear, that may be true, but we have to go by the scientific information you gave us, not your word. It's no offense, it's what we have to do."
Me: ".......um, ok. I'm serious though, it's not even scientifically possible to have this gestational age or date..."
Nurse: "I understand what you are saying, but with you leaving and not being seen here, we can't determine that, so we have to document the conception date discrepancy in your papers so people on the 'other side' are aware and can figure that out when you get there."
I'd like to take this moment to say thanks to all "those" Bragg women out there that make the rest of us with "conception date discrepancies" look like hoodlums. Appreciate it.
So I left the clinic with a memo in hand for my next health provider "on the other side" stating that yes, I was pregnant, with a March estimated due date, although gestational age is undetermined.
I also got a plethora of information from the clinic about giving birth in Germany.
What all my options were, how they "do things" there, etc. This left me feeling, although still nauseous, pretty confident and happy with how things turned out and was ready to take on this craziness head on.
We went to Oklahoma for my Uncle Rick's funeral and I was able to talk to each of my family members one on one about being pregnant this time around, which was something I didn't get with Brynlee.
I actually told everyone as we were headed out the door with my parents to get in the car to drive back to Colorado.
The best response to the news was by far from my Uncle Darrell, who without skipping a beat immediately asked who the father was. Considering my "conception date discrepancy" it pretty much was a family joke from that point on, haha.
My parents had no clue until we arrived at their home in Colorado and we were having prayer for dinner when John prayed/thanked God for the new baby joining the family.
They were shocked of course and all of us were very hyped on emotion having just come from the funeral and with our little family getting ready to move so far away.
We had B parade her big sister shirt everywhere else she went to "tell" people our news, some getting it right away, some not (cough, cough, Scott, cough, cough).
I also got to tell the news to my two college girl friends who were also both pregnant at the time. That was exciting and something I think we all thought would probably never happen with all the distance and circumstances that geographically separate us.
By the time of our "good-bye" party everyone knew and we were able to really celebrate just life in general with all our family and friends before leaving.
Three days before our flight from Colorado Springs to Ramstein, Germany, John got a call.
A call that literally changed everything.
Suddenly we weren't going to Germany anymore, we were now being sent to Chievres Army Air Base in Chievres, Belgium and arrived there on September 11.
This duty station change will be a whole new post in itself, so to stay on point, this changed everything as far as baby as well.
Everything I knew and was expecting about giving birth overseas in an "American" hospital were now out the window as I was now in Belgium being told I would be given a referral to go find a hospital in the local French economy and was provided a list of hospitals with doctors names that spoke "some" English.
We arrived for our first appointment on October 1st and were greeted by a doctor that spoke ZERO English. Talk about a great introduction of what was to come!
With the translation help of a SHAPE liaison, the doctor was at least able to do an ultrasound to measure and determine how far along I was.
We finally got a definitive time line, the doc taking 4 weeks gestation away (I felt very vindicated!), putting me at almost exactly 13 weeks pregnant, due April 8th, his Papa's (and future sister in law) birthday!
What was really neat about this appointment is that John never saw Brynlee on an ultrasound past 8 weeks gestation, so he was very fascinated about the identifiable parts on the screen and pictures!
One thing I really appreciate about our hospital experience here in Belgium is once your pregnancy is validated they schedule your entire pregnancy's worth of appointments and ultrasounds right then and there so you know all the way to your due date when everything is going to be. It made it easier to have John be able to come to "major" appointments knowing when they all were going to be!We went back a few weeks later and met our assigned doctor, who spoke fairly good English--enough where we could communicate fairly well for the most part.
One of his very first questions to us before we even sat down was, "Do you speak only English? No French?"
Um, no. That's why we were assigned to you, because you speak English......right!?"
"Well yes, but my English is not that great, but that's ok, it will be fine."
Um, ok......here's to hoping?
Since it was our first initial visit with him, he did an ultrasound himself where almost immediately I saw the "proof" that we were indeed having a little boy!
He later on confirmed the gender and John was just so excited.
"One and one and done!"
Upon further discussion with the doctor we asked him about Belgian/French cultural differences when it came to hospital care, pregnancy, delivery, post delivery, etc.
Considering I never used a doctor with B, only midwives and my doula, I had a ton of questions let alone cultural ones.
Our doctor's response, "It's a little too soon to be asking questions like that..."
Wow, ok. We don't think it's too soon to be asking anything like that considering we don't speak your language and aren't from your country, but ok?
At this appointment (first one by myself, driving there and accomplishing this without an interpreter or spouse was a HUGE win in my "new to Europe" book!) I received what they call your ONE book. It's a book that has all your pregnancy information inside and you are "required" to carry it with you at all times.
It was also at this appointment where I learned that the blood test for toxoplasmosis is done once a month your entire pregnancy, not just the one time like in America.
I met with my doctor's nurse for the first time and she spoke virtually zero English, so we Google Translated pretty much the entire time and continued to do so for the rest of our appointments.
At this point in the pregnancy everything was pretty smooth sailing and normal.
Nausea went away, finally started looking pregnant, not bloated.
Started to feel flutters and could eat normally again.
By December flutters were no longer in my vocabulary to describe how this baby moved.
More like ninja mosh pit child.
All day and all night this little boy moves, twists, summersaults, and karate chops my innards to the point of being woken up in the night and not getting much sleep, earlier on sometimes being most comfortable sitting up sleeping on our couch.
John was mainly just fascinated at how in depth the pictures could be, wanting to know what everything was, and to make triple sure it really was a boy.
While Brynlee, and her Doc McStuffin loving self, stood by me on the table, holding and kissing my hand, telling me "It's ok mama."
We all had a first this time around as well, getting a 3D ultrasound done on little man.
Under military Tricare, and most of America from what I understand, getting one or two ultrasounds is pretty normal for a normal pregnancy.
So far, to date, I've gotten an ultrasound every appointment and 3D ultrasounds at both of our "main" ultrasounds which is something I never got with Brynlee.
Up until this point little man pretty much does whatever he can to hide his face and not allow us to see much above his shoulders. We managed to get one 3D picture where his face was somewhat exposed, but in my opinion 3D pictures are kinda weird, so I wasn't sure what to think much about the 3D pictures we got!
This appointment I also brought my birth records to the doctor to read over.
He was hesitant to "allow" me to have a natural delivery after how I explained my labor and delivery of Brynlee went.
I think a lot of this were things lost in translation because of language barriers, which started adding to the frustration of how things were going with our doc/patient relationship.
I felt like I was explaining things over and over and over, the simplest way I knew how, and he still didn't understand what I was saying or in what context I was trying to explain things in.
This frustration continued to grow over time, to the point where I would dread doctor appointments, I was extremely unhappy and very unconfident in giving birth again, especially the way I wanted with my own preferences.
The more appointments we had the less excited I felt about being pregnant at all, and that was a hard pill to swallow. I kept telling myself it's because it's a different culture, don't be a "high maintenance" American, suck it up and embrace this as an adventure of something new and different....and something you now know you won't want to do again here!
I do appreciate how lax and chill the people here are around pregnant women.
Unlike in America, they definitely do not coddle you, treat you "special" or different because you are pregnant. At first I wasn't sure what to think of this, but as time went on I kinda preferred it! They just leave you alone and let you do your thing.
As long as toxoplasmosis and any other tests they run come back normal, they don't bug you about a thing. Which in the negative side is, they also do not offer up any information either unless you ask.
Well I had tried asking before and got shut down, so I really was checked out of the whole experience and the closer his due date got, the more dreaded about it I became.
To the point where I was questioning any kind of birth preferences I had at all, just so I could go in, have the baby go out, and just not have to come back.
Almost like a business transaction.
It was starting to make me really sad and it didn't really get better from there...
I was assured by now that a natural delivery was ok but now he wanted to see all my post partum paperwork with all the healing issues I had, which has actually been probably the #1 thing I was weary about the most.
John left the month of January, right after B's 3rd bday, for a school in Texas, so she was my date for the next appointments!
As I've shown on FB and said before, she just loves Doc McStuffins, so she is always fascinated with what we do at these appointments. Even during my monthly toxoplasmosis blood draws she would just sit there and watch quietly/intently and then sing me the "I feel better!" song after and would make sure to double check my bandaid and give me check ups when we got home.
Here was another example of doctor/patient not clicking.
Because of John leaving the country, and me staying behind in a foreign one, I was way out of my comfort zone. What do I do if something happens? What will I do with B? Where do I go? So I voiced my concerns to my doctor at an appointment.
"If something were to happen you can always call an ambulance."
"Ok, well what's the phone number for that?" (BTW it's not 911, haha).
"You don't know that number?"
"Um, no, I wouldn't be asking for it if I knew it.... Where do I go if something happens while he's away?"
"You come here.....??"
"WHERE here?
"Well if it's during the day the main entrance and if it's at night, the emergency entrance."
"Ok where is that?"
"On the side of the building..."
"Which side?"
This went on forever.
Felt like a huge game of "Ring Around the Rosy..."
The larger he got the more I tried to identify parts and became curious when I kept having the largest lump I could find always being on my right side.
I was worried he was transverse, so my next appointment when they did their usual ultrasound I was very relieved to know he was head down, but facing sideways, so his bum was always sticking out on my side.
He was pretty much sitting like a "7," with his feet floating off to the other side of me, hands still blocking his face, but not making as much movement as his body and bum.
The month of March is when everything, again, changed!
John was home from Texas finally, and I went in for a routine check up and toxoplasmosis draw (starting to bruise from all these monthly blood draws by this point!).
That's when my doctor told me he "just realized" that he wasn't going to be in the country the week of or week after my due date because of Easter holiday (they seriously take two weeks vacation/holiday for Easter, Europeans love their holidays!) and asked me again, if I knew or had learned any French.
I told him no, I hadn't really had time to learn any and I was caught quite off guard that he was just now realizing he wasn't going to be there after we'd known my due date since October.
His response to this was, "Well, this could be a problem."
Oh, the things a pregnant woman in a different country than her own, loves to hear!
He goes on to say, "Well, there are only two other doctors here that speak "medium" English, and they are going to be on Easter holiday as well except for these two days during these two weeks. So, let's hope you go into labor early (another thing every pregnant woman longs to hear?), you go into labor on one of these two days they are present at the hospital while I'm away, or use your last month of pregnancy learning as much French as you can."
**Sidenote: We did attempt to learn some French birthing words when our English speaking landlord was at our house one day. John asked him for the French word for "push," and well, Google Translate that one and hit the "speaker" button on how that's pronounced in French. We didn't ask for anymore word help after that and I seriously had to leave the room after that one.**
Um yeah, we are done here.
This was kind of the final straw for me which sent me straight into the SHAPE (NATO base) clinic to ask about possibly being switched to a different hospital or doctor this late into my pregnancy (I was 34 weeks at this point).
The midwife we have at our clinic is from England and was so nice in helping me get a consult done at a different location to see if I could get in or if I would even like it. She also assured me I was not being a high maintenance American (at least that's what she said, ha!) and that she understood my insecurities and unhappiness with this impending birth and that finding somewhere and someone I was comfortable with was key.
I had a doctor appointment that next week in a different city called Ath (pronounced "ought") at their local hospital, Epicura, where I met our new doctor, Dr. Den Hollander.
She's from The Netherlands and is fluent in French, English and Dutch and was very hands on in answer any and every single question John and I could possibly think of.
She also was much more in control of things, going out of her way to set up a hospital tour with me, making sure someone would be there for the tour that spoke English and could answer our questions, taking me to the maternity ward herself to show us where it was, etc, which is something my previous doctor never even brought up or offered to me.
I went on a tour the next week with another American gal that just moved here and is due a week after me, with her second as well.
The maternity ward at Epicura is 100% run by midwives with doctors really only present at pushing/delivery for medical purposes. If the baby comes out fine, they said it's normal for doctors to not even touch the baby but just check off things are good and go on about their day elsewhere.
They have three different types of delivery rooms Earth, Water, and Fire.
Earth is a room where there are no medical interventions of any kind present in the room, it's for all natural births and if this were my first kid would think it looked like a torture chamber.
Considering it was not my first I was totally fascinated.
A five step up, 4-6 person jacuzzi birthing tub, more tools and contraptions on the wall, hanging from the ceiling than I would ever know what to do with. A pull apart circle shaped bed with all sorts of bars, stools, and lifts to help you find a position that best suits you.
The Water room (which is what I'm going for) has the same options as the Earth room, just on a smaller scale but also includes the medicinal equipment necessary if a epidural or other medicines are requested.
The Fire room, well, it's for the women that go into labor, don't want to feel a thing, so they give you a bed, hook you up, and you just do what they tell you to do when they tell you to do it (this probably would have been me if I had stayed at Ambrose!).
I left the tour feeling the most excited I had felt this entire pregnancy, hands down.
I felt inspired, I felt in control (finally!), and I actually looked forward and was motivated looking towards his fast approaching due date instead of with dread and no confidence in myself or my body.
I filed the insurance papers to switch hospitals and it was approved the last day it could possibly have been changed, on my 36 week day to the day.
I've been back for one other appointment since and although they still do the monthly toxoplasmosis blood draw, the ambiance is so different there I can't help but just look forward to having this baby.
I'm so blessed to have carried him and I hate how often I took it for granted this time around.
Although still a total womb ninja, here at 39+ weeks, he's already been so go with the flow with all the events that has led up to this moment, I can't help but look forward to his arrival now. He's resilient and I can't wait to see how that translates when he joins our family.
We've been so generously blessed by the friends we've made here and the friends and family we left behind in the States, I can't help but smile, even on our down days, knowing that there is greater good going on here.
My Aunt Karla, flew into Brussels last weekend to be with us/Brynlee for a few weeks surrounding his, hopefully sooner rather than later, birth date. Considering she and my late Uncle Rick were the first to know of his existence brings it totally full circle for me and I couldn't be more blessed than I am right now.
This road to April hasn't been easy, things non-baby related have made this time almost seem unbearable, but here we are.
And now that Karla is here, we stay busy and we wait....
As my doctor puts it, "Let's let the baby choose his birthday..."
Come on little man, we are ready for you!
As my doctor puts it, "Let's let the baby choose his birthday..."
Come on little man, we are ready for you!
