11 Days Overdue and just...Wow

If you've ever been pregnant, you know that even if you try REEEEALLY hard not to count how many days you have left until your due date, but by the end, you totally do. 

Which stinks when end up going overdue.

Especially when you go 11 days overdue. 

Hormones are raging. Tying your shoes is a joke. All people seem to want to talk to you about is how they can't believe you're still pregnant...

But I have to admit: being overdue 2 or 3 days was actually harder than being 9 days overdue. I think I'd just kind of mentally given up by day 6 or so, realizing that any anticipation that I was having that I might actually have a baby that day was going to end in complete and utter disappointment, so why even care anymore? I was going to be pregnant forever, so I'd better just deal with it...and in the meantime have some dang fun! Or...at least as much fun as I could manage ;)

Yes, in the end I did indeed have the baby. And I feel like survived being overdue quite well and I learned a TON in the process. Here's a journal entry I wrote near the end of that experience.
Read on if you'd like to know
1. How I survived (quite happily, actually) and
2. What happened during my attempts to find out WHAT THE HECK happens at a German hospital when you're 10 days overdue.

(Originally written March 8th, 2017)

So. Over the past week and a half, I have learned a lot. As of today, this baby is 9 days overdue and is showing absolutely no - NO - signs of coming anytime soon. She is just...really staying put. Tomorrow I am scheduled to go into the hospital and be induced. More on that in a minute.

But what do I feel like I've learned over the past 9 days? 

A lot. 

A lot about myself, AND a lot about something (having your baby be overdue) that a LOT of people, apparently, go through. 

It seems like since I've been overdue, everyone that I meet is telling me "oh yeah! My daughter was 14 days late!" or "I know how you're feeling - I was 9 days overdue" or ...

...so I am not alone.

Even my own mother admitted to being 1-2 weeks late with with all 6 of her children. All of them. 

HOW IN THE WORLD DID I NOT KNOW THAT??!!

So, not only am I in good company, but I guess I was pretty lucky to have my first two kids relatively on time. 

How I have felt about this experience has come in waves - not only from day 1 to 9, but also throughout the day. Mornings are often optimistic, and evenings are often grumbley, and somewhat disappointing, having spent yet another day hoping that something magical might happen by the end of the day, with no results. 

Here's what I feel like I've learned thus far, mixed in with what I've found most helpful through this process. 

1. This is a good opportunity to practice patience. 

Often, when I am feeling impatient, there's some underlying cause - a hidden sliver in my finger - that I am completely unaware of. I don't even realize that the sliver is there until I am sighing heavily with exasperation, being much too stern with my kids, or worse. With this situation, however, I knew exactly what was wrong. I knew that there was underlying stress, and I knew why. I've thought a lot about how I often say to Bridger "Even when we're tired/hungry/frustrated, it's still important to be nice to other people" - and I sincerely tried to practice what I preach. It was good - sure I had my slip-ups, but I feel like this has been character building, and perhaps even a good week-and-a-half's practice for needed patience to come in the coming months as we adjust to having a newborn. 

2. Having something to look forward to everyday helps. A lot.

Berkley and Me on a date,
5 days overdue

Since I wasn't having this baby, instead of sitting around all day, thinking about how I wasn't having the baby, but maybe I would tomorrow, I decided to "seize the day". I've filled my day with things that I wouldn't be able to do with a tiny newborn and recovering body, but that I can do right now. I held a story time at my house for little kids. I got together with friends. I meal planned and cooked good food. I went on dates during the day with my husband (thank you in-laws for being in town!). I took my in laws to Altstadt here in Dusseldorf and showed them around. I went to the international library...

...I could go on, but the point is that I could have canceled any and all of those things last minute if I were having a baby, but because I wasn't, I was actually enjoying myself, enjoying friends, being distracted, and getting things done.

  

3. Make the effort to look good, and you'll feel pretty good.

I've been lucky. I have had a really good pregnancy, and over the last 9 days, even though I AM HUGE, I have felt physically really, really good. I have slept fairly well, and (partially in an effort to coax this baby out) have been really active with very little negative effects. Sure, I may be more tired at the end of the day, or I may not be able to stand around at the museum as long as I normally would, but hey - all things considered, it's been good. Also, I've felt good about myself. I picked out all of my favorite maternity clothes and have been sporting them - even the dresses - all week. I do my hair, and I wear the cute shoes as long as I want to. I figure, if I am only going to be wearing these clothes for just a few more days, I might as well enjoy them :) 

(Also, I just have to say, for the record: I have this amazing friend who invited me over to her house, rubbed my feet, painted my toenails and did my hair for me when I was 2 days overdue. And it WAS AMAZING. I hadn't painted a nail of any sort since 6th grade (literally) and my hair pretty much always needs help, and you know what? She made me feel amazing. I loved it, and I love her. So - yeah...just remember that.)

So now, as I head into the final 24ish hours of this pregnancy, how am I feeling about what is coming? How do I feel about what the heck happens when you're going to a hospital 10 days overdue in Germany?

About the baby itself: Sooooo excited! I can't wait to meet her. 

About the birthing process itself:

Let me be honest. Hesitant. Worried. Venturing into unknown territory. 

Let me explain:

Last Saturday, my OB office was closed. The OB told me that I had to go into the hospital for my daily CTG (yes, they make you go in an monitor the baby's  heart rate daily when you're overdue). At first I was just annoyed, since I've been doing these things all of the freaking time - every day - and Saturday is my family day, and I KNEW it would take forever to get it done at the hospital (it did - 3 hours total). But I also decided that, hey - maaaaaybe this would give me a chance to ask some questions about the hospital and what was coming up, including what their procedure was for inducing labor. 

I showed up, and a very nice nurse/midwife helped me get started with the CTG. I introduced myself, told her that I was still learning German, and that, if possible, English was a lot better for me. She smiled politely, and looked at me like "Um...yeah right." 

It was clear she didn't speak English. 

At the end of my CTG, I decided that I better just ask her my questions about inducing labor, in case I didn't get a chance to meet with anyone else. So, in my best German, I asked her. It was somewhat pathetic - I didn't even know how to say "Induced". Eesh.

Luckily she understood, and carefully launched into an explanation, which, though I tried reeeeally hard, I didn't fully understand. It sounded...complicated. What I did catch was something like:

"well, you drink this concoction of scheigheig, boeighoig, und gheigheigh that makes you poo and encourages contractions, then you go home and sleep for the night, and if nothing is happening in the morning, we give you these pills...."

?????

Poo-inducing-concoction???? Pills????

Not that I am a fan of pitocin, at all, but at least I know what it is. Unlike the poo concoction or pills....

I just kind of smiled and nodded, hoping that I would be able to run into someone else that could clarify. 

Luckily, I did. They had me meet with a doctor before I left (because I am so overdue) and I asked him. He didn't say anything about the poo-concoction, but did mention the pills that I would take every 4 hours until I had the baby, along with more CTG's, of course...

While his answer was better, it still left me with questions. 

This week, when I met with my OB for the last time and she said that I would need to go to the hospital to be induced, I asked her what the procedure normally was. She didn't mention anything about the poo-concoction or pills, and instead started talking about something they would insert up my hoo-haa, which would then...

...whaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAt?! 

Not that I am opposed to new things, but I just want some consistency here, people! My OB told me I would just have to ask the people at the hospital. 

Fine. 

So. As I was going to bed that night, tired, full of hormones, and unsure of what exactly was going to happen, I realized how truly anxious I was feeling, and it did not feel good. Birth is a beautiful thing, and I felt so blessed to have had a natural, unmedicated birth with Juniper where I knew what was happening to my body and why. Even with Bridger's birth, where medication was necessary, I had someone there to explain, carefully and clearly, what was going on with each step of the process, even before it started. But to enter into this experience, with hope for something beautiful, but knowing that there are going to be unfamiliar chemicals going into my body, not knowing what they are nor how my body will react to them, nor how anyone's body in the past has typically responded to them - it's just...

...unsettling. 

So. I have a plan. Today, I am going to ask my upstairs neighbor to call the hospital with me. She speaks pretty good English, and is kind, so I feel comfortable figuring out what it is that's actually going to go into my body will be. Then I will call my amazing midwife friend from the UK. I am hoping that she'll know what the hormones/pills/chemicals/whatever are that they'll be using, and tell me a little more about them. If not, at least she might be able to ease my mind a bit, and give me hope (she's good at that on a lot of levels). 

Then, tomorrow morning I am going to make a big, fun breakfast for the kids, Les and Corinne, Berkley and I: pumpkin pancakes, apple sauce, cinnamon rolls, eggs, sausages, and a drink menu of smoothies, juice or hot chocolate...it will be my one final shebang! Then off to the hospital. 

I want to feel excited, not anxious. I want to feel empowered, not vulnerable. I want to feel prepared, not in the dark. 

I deserve to feel the way I want to feel. 

But no matter what happens, one thing that is reassuring is that I will have Berkley at my side the whole time, supporting me, my kids are in the best of hands with Grandma and Grandpa, and in the end of all of this, I'll have a little baby girl. 

So - away we go! Wish me luck. 

Just so you know, this is the only mirror-selfie I've ever taken...I needed the mirror to get a good, accurate representation of how enormous that belly really was

Pregnancy in Germany part 2: Insurance and Registering at the Hospital

Last time I wrote about my pregnancy, I wrote about my experience with prenatal care in Germany.
Just a warning ahead of time that this part of the story isn't quite as amusing (though somewhat at times), but still a part of the whole story and therefore important for me :)

Another side of the pregnancy adventure has been figuring out the insurance situation that we find ourselves in here. WeeeeeEEEE. Sounds exciting, right? Welp, let me just continue with this tantalizing tale...

First, let me explain that Germany has statutory health insurance system. This means, basically, that people pay into the healthcare pool from their payroll or bank, then their healthcare is covered. And it is GOOD healthcare. The care is good, and pretty much everything that could happen to you (from what I've seen) is covered - especially when it comes to having a baby, because Germany wants more babies. 
If one wants different (private) healthcare coverage, that person can opt out, but private health care is generally better than the normal insurance, meaning superDEEDUPERDEE fancy/good, which means that people pay the big bucks for it. 

But what about us Walkers? We don't qualify for the statutory health insurance program. And we don't make the big bucks. SO what do we do? 

Well, OF COURSE we find the cheapest possible private health insurance that you can find that seems remotely reasonable. It works. But it has...(deeeep slow breath...) proved to test my patience. 

First, let me just tell you...we have these insurance cards that look like they were designed in 1995 by a junior high kid for his computer class assignment. When receptionists see the insurance  card, they stare at it. For a long time. Like a "is-this-for-real?" stare. They're kind and professional, but are VERY CLEARLY confused as to what manner of devilry we've just handed them. They're very, very used to only seeing cards from the government or well-known private companies. 

As for the coverage: With this provider, we get coverage...well, kind of...eventually. 

First, we get the bills. 
Then we pay all of those bills out of pocket. 
Then we send the copies of the bills to the insurance company, who reimburse us (in theory) for our expenses. 

Sounds simple, right? But I have several mental hang-ups. 
First...prenatal bills are big. BIG. That's hard to see. 
Second, the insurance company is slow. It takes them an indeterminate amount of time to reimburse us - sometimes over a month. 
Third, we often find out, after the fact, that random stuff isn't covered by our insurance, but it's already been done an paid for, so we're out of luck.
And Fourth, because the doctors are used to anything and everything being covered, they just do anything and everything that they want, and are confused and SO ALARMED when you come to them, questioning what care you'll be given, because you might have to pay for it out of pocket. First, the doctors judge you for questioning the way that they're providing you care. Then, they get angry with your wussy, lame insurance company.
It's an awkward conversation made more awkward by a language barrier. It's hard. But it's one of those "one hard thing a day" things.

I don't know - I guess there's something about seeing a huge bill, and knowing it's going to come out of our bank account for an indeterminate amount of time that is hard for me. 

Also - I get to see everything - EVERYTHING that they do/test for at the office on the bills. Everything from pinpricks to blood tests to tests for chlamydia?? to ultrasounds. It's amazing how much more closely you see what's being done for you (in horror) when you're paying for it all, Euro by Euro. Me no likey.

This tries my patience.

But it is the way that it is. And I am glad that we have something to cover us, especially during this pregnancy. 

Now that you know how I feel about my insurance, here's 
another adventure: registering at the hospital

About 1 1/2 months before I was due, we attempted to go to an informational evening at the hospital where I planned on having the baby. 

"Cool!" we thought. "We'll be able to see where we'll be and be more familiar with it all!" 

So we went. We brought the kids. We didn't really have a choice, but we thought it would be cool for them to see the rooms, know where I was going to be, etc, etc. 
Buuuuut we were totally naive as to what this "information night" was really going to be. 

First, it was PACKED. There were probably 40 other people there. And none of them brought their children. Just us. Two kids, one slinky, and a handful of gummy bears. 

Normally, under such circumstances, we would have been okay. However, they had everyone sit down in rows of chairs in a confined area to start. What next proceeded was a 45 minute long PowerPoint presentation in a foreign language. I caught maybe 25% of what was said. 
Two kids. 
One slinky. 
A handful of gummy bears.
To their credit, the kids were great, lasting at least 1/2 and hour before Berkley took them out, and not even because they were being bad, but more because we pitied them.

When discussing this experience with my parents later, Bridger's description of the experience went something like this:

"Yeah, there was this big white paper hanging on the wall with a bunch of words on it. But they did have some pictures. But it was pretty boring. So then we went out to the hallway and started drinking their water. We drank ALLLL this fizzy water, and..."
Yeah. Pretty impressionable experience for him. 

So how did it go for me? I'll admit. I was lost. I wasn't getting information I needed. I didn't have the courage to ask questions. Grr. 

When we went to leave for the "tour" I was also disappointed. I was near the back of the group, and couldn't hear well. We first walked to a recovery room. I'd already been informed that mom's and new babies don't get their own recovery room, that it's shared with another patient. "That's cool with me" I thought, not wanting to pay insane amounts for the privacy of a single-bed room. "I can handle a neighbor".

But when I saw it, I was a little...bummed. The room was small and the beds close enough together that if the patients both leaned over and put their arms out, they could hold hands. And there was no privacy curtain between the beds.
*Siiiiiiigh*********

I don't know. I really appreciate my privacy when it comes to the hours after giving birth. There's a lot of awkward "my body is getting used to itself/doing whaaaat?" moments, not to mention the potential trickiness of breastfeeding. It's just...nice to have some privacy and only worry about yourself.

But. 

I can do hard things. 

And I am just going to have to fake it 'til I make it. 

Bring. It. On. 

We started toward the other side of the hospital floor to see a delivery room. Along the way, I found Berkley and the kids in the lobby, where the children had been drinking copious amounts of fizzy water to keep themselves entertained. Berkley wasn't feeling well, and the kids had been cooped up for far too long, and I was feeling a bit burnt out on the whole experience, so we headed home without seeing a delivery room. But whatever. I felt done. I now had more questions than I felt like I'd come with and I was just wanting to be out of there.

Fortunately, I had hope. The tour was a Wednesday evening, and I had an appointment to actually go and register with the hospital on Friday morning. 

But, again, it was way harder than expected. 

Berkley had to, unexpectedly, stay home with the sick kids, so I was off, on my own.

I arrived, hoping that I'd just have to fill out some simple paperwork, and hoped that maybe, just maybe I would get to see someone who spoke English and I could get some questions off of my chest.

don't 

I was wrong. 

I sat in two rooms for over an hour, filling out paperwork in a foreign language as best as I could. The medical terminology was challenging. Knowing that if I filled something out incorrectly it would just complicate things in the future - I was totally stressed out. 

Then there was the insurance.  I sat there watching the lovely, kind, non-English speaking hospital personnel struggle with figuring out what kind of health insurance I had, and asking me complicated questions about it, which I didn't really have answers for. 

I left their office with a heavy burden. I was so worried. If I filled out this paperwork wrong, or if they didn't understand what our insurance provides, we'd be paying for everything out of pocket. I'll admit - a few, stressful tears were shed.

FORTUNATELY, the last person I saw to close up the registration process before heading out of the hospital SPOKE ENGLISH. I explained to her my conundrum of odd insurance (which she cleared up, assuring me that I wouldn't be paying out of pocket, WHEW). I then asked her about a few of the questions I had. She answered them. 

It was good. 
I was grateful. 

So, registering, while uber-stressful, turned out okay in the end. I was glad. It still wasn't completely finished, as the hospital said that they still needed some information from the insurance company...but yeah. For the most part, it was done. 

Now, even though the whole having the baby thing was still a pretty big unknown (parts of that always are anyways, right?) at least I knew I wouldn't be sitting around filling out paperwork for the first 2 hours of labor and delivery :) 

But lessons learned in the end:
1. Choosing the cheapest insurance will most likely result in some form of badness, but if you're lucky, you and your bank account will survive. 

2. Unless you're looking for a challenge, bring a friend that speaks German fluently (not your kids) to register with you at the hospital.