Obstetrics

I am 6 weeks and 4 days pregnant today.

I called up the Auckland Obstetrics Centre for my first appointment.

Fee is $3,900, paid in 5 installments. This includes:

• Information pack
• Visits:
  Weeks 1 - 28: Monthly visits
  Weeks 28-36: Fortnightly visits
  Weeks 36-40: Weekly visits
• Post-natal mid-wife, 4-5 visits till the 6-week check, then handover back to GP

And so it starts...

On 15 March I was more than a week late, so I took a pregnancy test using First Response, which was pretty foolproof. It returned positive, and all of a sudden Bas couldn't get to sleep. I also couldn't wipe his grin off his face. We decided to see the doctor on the next day, to have the result double-checked.

On 16 March we went to Greenwoods Medical Centre on the way home and we talked to Dr Farquarson. The funny bit is that because of my pretty neutral reaction to the news, he had assumed that we hadn't planned this. He confirmed that I was 6 weeks pregnant and due on 7-8 November. That means we potentially conceived a Valentine's Day child.

He gave me a pregnancy information pack and advised that we could either go for a midwife, or use the services of an obstetrician. And that he hated home deliveries.

So far we broke the news to Oma Yoke, Uncle Thijs, Ong Ngoai Phong then Ba Ngoai Solange.

And all the food restrictions suck.

Preamble

Bas and I had, traditionally, scoffed at the idea of getting a kid. Bas had always said that if we did though, that it'd have to happen by the time I'm 30. Something about increased chances of the baby developing a disease if the mother was 30 or older. He's really vehement about it. I had, in parallel, set myself a deadline to decide by my 28th birthday whether I wanted to go for it.

Then on 04 May 2007, my 28th birthday, we were having dinner at Wildfire when we started discussing it.
We both came to the conclusion that we both wanted it. Though Bas was definitely getting clucky.

So the master plan was for me to get off the pill to give my body time to readjust itself, but still use condoms as we were planning a trip to Vietnam (25 Dec - 10 Jan). However because of our malaria prevention treatment we were going to be on, we'd need to wait at least 3 weeks after the last Malarone pill before trying to conceive.

So my period dates were 27 January 2007 then 01 February 2007.