Pregnancy German Style

I thought I’d document my pregnancy for a few of reasons.

1) I think it would be fun for our little girl to be able to read this when she is older to see what my pregnancy was like.
2) I’d also like to be able to compare this pregnancy with the next one.
3) I want to see how the entire German pregnancy / birthing experience might be different from where ever I am for number 2.

I first suspected that I might be pregnant during a weeklong cycling trip in Provence. Obviously, this put a damper on my ability to enjoy fine French wines and stinky soft cheeses. However, I was excited by the prospect of being pregnant and relieved that it only took us 3 months before one of Jim’s little guys scored. I was concerned that all of those years of tight Lycra bike shorts might have done some damage.

As soon as we got home from France, I peed on a stick to get confirmation that I was indeed pregnant. Since I bought the cheapo pregnancy tests from Wal-Mart, the first one wasn’t quite clear. However, it could have been operator error. I had already thrown out the directions so wasn’t sure how long I was supposed to wait for the little pink line or plus or whatever sign might signal a positive result. After about 3 other tests, I was pretty confident that I was pregnant so made an appointment with my doctor.

At my first appointment the doctor obviously confirmed that I was indeed pregnant. She did a wand ultrasound and I got my first picture of what looked more like a bean than a baby.

Most of my appointments so far have been similar to this first appointment. I arrive and am handed a plastic Dixie cup with my name written in marker. I then use the downstairs bathroom and place the cup on a tray out in the open with a bunch of other urine samples. I wait an hour before getting called into the hallway, then I am weighed and my blood pressure is taken as well as any blood samples for various tests. Then I go back in the hallway to wait for the doctor to call me in. She generally asks me how I’m -feeling, goes over any results of past tests and then I get an ultra-sound. I’ve been shown the baby at every appointment except one.

My first trimester was a breeze. After witnessing my sister’s terrible morning (excuse me, all day) sickness, I was quite worried about how sick I would be. However, I was lucky enough to dodge the morning sickness bullet and felt pretty normal other than my gargantuan itchy boobs. Save for some musty tasting mangos, I really had no food aversions and the only food cravings I experienced were for sweets. Thankfully, I was able to continue my normal work outs during that first three and a half months so despite my ice cream addiction I only gained about 4-5 pounds.

I was so thankful that I was neither sick nor fatigued because I had an enormous amount of travel planned for the first trimester. After returning from Provence, my mom and sister arrived for a two week visit. During those two weeks we went to Amsterdam, Bruges, Copenhagen, Cologne, Beilstein, Bruhl, Rothenburg, and finally Frankfurt. I had four days to recuperate from that travelling stint before Jim and I were off to Tuscany for a week. Finally, I ended my 1st trimester with a weekend in Stockholm.

15 Weeks

Jim has come with me to the more important ultra-sound appointments. His first visit to the gyno was entertaining for me. When we first got into the doctor’s office, he made sure he was far across the room. He wasn’t so sure about the leg stirrups and kept eyeing them suspiciously. However, as soon as the ultra sound started he was right next to me peppering the doctor with question after question. He was amazed by the fact that there was a real baby inside me. I’m not sure if he thought that I had been growing an alien or a puppy in there all this time, but seeing it made it very real for him.

The beginning of my second trimester was really more of the same. I felt pretty good and was able to continue biking, running, hiking and swimming.

I was able to continue wearing my regular clothes until about week 23 or 24. I didn’t really start to grow until I went home to the States in mid July around week 20.

I decided to stop riding my road bike at about week 23. It was becoming just too uncomfortable. About a week later, I had to cut down on my running as well. I ran 6 miles and found I was worn out the rest of the day so shortened my runs to 4 miles with breaks in between if I felt any discomfort or pain.

24 Weeks

In my 25th week, I was wearing maternity pants but still able to get away with some of my regular shirts. I’m not sure why I was in so much of a rush to start showing. I guess in the beginning, I wanted everyone to know that I was preggers. Now, I’m realizing that along with the big prego belly comes some discomfort and awkwardness.

In Germany, the doctor who you visit for all of your pre-natal exams is not the doctor who will deliver your baby. The doctors who will deliver the baby work only at the hospital and do only deliveries and other gynecological surgeries. It is almost more comforting to know that delivering babies is what they do day in and day out.

Unfortunately, that left finding a hospital completely up to us. My doctor wrote down 4 names of hospitals on a sticky note but her assistance stopped there. All of the area hospitals have one or two informational evenings every month for expectant mothers and fathers. We visited 3 of those hospitals. When you can’t understand a word the doctors are saying, it makes for a long, boring evening. However, we did get a tour of the maternity ward to see the birthing rooms and nursery. By our last tour, we got smart and brought some reading material and sat in the back.

28 Weeks

On one of the tours of a hospital we saw a very, very pregnant woman outside on one of the available decks for the maternity ward smoking a cigarette while leaning against a gigantic, no possible way you can miss it, No Smoking sign. The woman was fully decked out in her maternity support hose and a pair of floppy old slippers puffing away her contractions. Not surprisingly, our tour guide neglected to say anything about this but allowed us to go check out the deck for ourselves. There was so much wrong with that vision that we tried to capture it in a photo, but unfortunately couldn’t get the shot without being too obvious.

In Germany, midwives play a major role in the birth. All of the hospitals have midwives and you have the option of having a midwife before, during and after the birth. Before the birth, the midwife will come to your house and bring her equipment with her for any fetal monitoring that needs to be done in the last stages of pregnancy. Some midwives will also perform acupuncture which is supposed to help speed up labor and reduce the amount of pain during labor. They also often teach the birthing classes and post natal exercise classes.

With midwives at every birth here in Germany, there are far fewer C-sections and more natural births. Germans are generally in favor of less intervention and going a more natural route. I just hope that if I need the epidural I can get it. According to someone from Jim’s office, when his wife asked for the epidural the nurses and doctors seemed to be horrified and made her feel guilty about it.

33 Weeks

You can also have your midwife assist you after the birth. She will come to your house every day after the baby is born for a week and then less regularly in the following weeks to answer any questions you might have, weigh the baby to make sure it is gaining weight and that the mother is recuperating.

Thankfully, I have a few friends who have delivered babies here so have gotten a lot of information from them. They let me know that you don’t get a hospital gown during the labor which I hadn’t even considered. I will need to bring my own nightgown or outfit to wear for the delivery unless I want to be naked as the day I was born. Granted modesty might not be an issue I’m all that concerned about when I’m squeezing a baby out of my you know what. The hospital also doesn’t provide towels which I thought strange. However I’ve never actually stayed in the hospital in the US, so I don’t really know if they have towels there either.

I had my first appointment with the midwife last week. She came to do a “birthing” class with us in English. It was pretty disappointing. She answered a few questions we had, gave us a list of things we need for the baby and also did the first acupuncture session but overall it wasn’t that helpful. When I asked her about breathing techniques she said that deep breathing was all I needed to do. I guess I was looking for something a little more structured and informational.

It was interesting to see the list of “must haves” for the baby in Germany. A sleep sack was number 1 on the recommended list. Germans go the route of a sleep sack rather than swaddling babies. Also on my list was a cherry stone pillow and fennel tea for the baby to ease gas pains rather than using gas drops. There was actually no medicine at all on the list of things I should get.

36 Weeks

I am now in my last 4 weeks of pregnancy but have decided to post this bad boy now as I will most likely be consumed with getting everything ready for the baby in the next few weeks and won’t have time to blog.

I will do another blog on the end of my pregnancy and birthing experience after we come home from the hospital. Although I have a feeling that it will be quite delayed as we get used to our new role as parents.