Little House in the Suburban Woods: March 12, 2007

So, I got pregnant while living in a foreign country.

I didn't keep the pee stick... but I did take a picture of it.

Short back story: My husband and I were missionaries in Croatia, and we were living on half-built ship in the shipyard of a tiny coastal town, working with an international team of about 60 people. I did my first trimester of prenatal care there with the local baby doctor, and can't wait to share the journal entries I wrote about it because they are hee-hee-hee-larious.

My friend Staci bought me a box of pregnancy tests as a joke when I visited her back home in December of 2006. She had gotten pregnant while working as a missionary in Ireland and joked about how the same thing was going to happen to me, except that the Croatian pregnancy test instructions weren't going to be in English... so I had a First Response test handy in February when I suspected her joke might have turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The following journal entry chronicled my first attempt at prenatal care in a foreign country.

March 12, 2007

Today was the day of truth: can I successfully a) get money to go to the doctor without the entire team finding out, and b) find and communicate with said doctor? When I called to make the appointment, the lady on the other end of the phone just said "Okay, you come Monday, 8 am. Bye bye." She didn't ask for my name or anything! I guess she was going to recognize me from the fact that I was foreign.

I started the day by lying to the other teachers and telling them I was going on a breakfast date with Chris would get to school a bit late that day. They took the bait and didn't ask any more questions. Next I slunk into the office, trying to call as little attention to myself as possible (difficult in a 10x12 room, ha!) and quietly asked my sweet friend and team banker Iris for some money. I had told her the day before that I needed to go to the doctor and, being the polite Austrian that she is, she didn't ask why. I made it out the door with my 300 Kuna ($50 USD), grabbed the team car keys, and was off.

We arrived at the "hospital" (I use this term loosely, as the building looks more like a post-war homeless shelter than a medical facility... seriously, bullet holes in walls and everything) and thus began the embarrassing Search For the Gynecologist. I knew his name, but as we all know, everyone in Croatia is named Boris, so that only narrowed it down to about 68 out of 70 doctors in the place. After wandering, propositioning other patients for answers, and finally finding someone who worked there AND spoke English, we had directions and went upstairs. The illustrious gynecologist's office sits directly across the hall from the geriatric doctor, which I find funny.

We went in and promptly waited for about 20 minutes for anyone to even acknowledge our presence. Eventually another patient took pity on me and managed to communicate to me that I should actually go into the receptionist's office and tell her I was there. Once I did that, I was taken back in about 3 minutes. Chris decided to wait it out in the waiting room, but I promised to come get him if anything interesting happened (like ultrasounds). The lady showed me to a dressing room where a "gown" and a huge pair of flip flops were waiting on me. She motioned for me to put them on and then left. I stood there and tried to determine just how exactly I should wear the "gown."

I use the term "gown" when really I should say "rectangular piece of green cloth with two ties." I reasoned to myself that in America, I would be naked under the gown for this exam, so I stripped down to the outfit I was wearing when I got pregnant and then tried to figure out how to tie the dang thing. I eventually got it fashioned like a strapless mini-dress (and I mean MINI dress) but, staring at myself in the mirror, began having serious doubts that this was the way it should be worn. Croatia is a Catholic country and something about this get up just felt... wrong.

I re-evaluated and decided that naked from the waist down under the "gown" should be good enough, so I re-dressed from the waist up, adjusted the mini-dress into a reasonably long skirt, slipped on the flip flops, and paraded out to meet Dr. Boris.

Seeing the door open, I let myself in and then just stood there... looking like Tarzan (as my friend Hollie would late put it). There was a chair, so I sat and waited for a lengthy discussion about past medical history, etc. Dr. Boris began:

"Last menses?"

I panicked.

This should not have been difficult. I knew the answer: February 3. But should I say "February 3," "3rd of February," "02/03," "03/02," or just go with "About 5 weeks ago, duh." Because the European date system is backwards, I had to get it right or the man would think I was stupid. So in typical nervous dumb American fashion, I tried every date format, and even stuttered out 03/05 at one point, which he was obviously confused by (as was I, since no matter what format you put it in, it was wrong, haha). Eventually, and with the help of the almighty conception wheel, he worked out that I should be around 5 weeks pregnant.

Next question: "First pregnancy?" Great! An easy answer: "Yes." Now I was expecting some questions about symptoms, how did I know I was pregnant, etc. What did I get? A hand, motioning to The Chair.

The Chair With The Stirrups On It.

"ALREADY?! I have to do this part already?!" I thought to myself as I shuffled towards the chair in my Tarzan skirt and man-sized flip flops.

With some maneuvering, I managed to get up there like a lady, hoping against hope that this was the chair where the blood pressure reading was taken. Not so lucky. I won't get into details, except to mention two incidents. First, about ten seconds into the exam, Dr. Boris says (while resting his head on my knee I might add! How weird was that?!) "Yes, this is pregnant." I felt overjoyed! (even as I corrected his grammar in my head) Then he says, "One is good, and yes... so is other."

WHAT?!

I'm totally serious when I say that I totally thought he was announcing I was having twins. Ha! Wow, I was ignorant about pregnancy back then!

Luckily I didn't have to panic for long because he then said, "O-var-ees good." PHEW! Sheesh, mister, you had me worried there.

Once he had confirmed that I was pregnant, he asked me if I "wanted to see baby on screen." Heck yeah, man! How lucky am I? Nobody in America gets an ultrasound at 5 weeks, so I was elated.

{interjection, this was pre-getting certified as a childbirth educator... ask me now what I think about early ultrasounds...}

I said, "I'll just go get my husband" and ran off (still looking like Tarzan) to get Chris from the waiting room. He came back with me and I threw myself onto the ultrasound bed. I pulled my shirt up to expose my lower belly and Dr. Boris just laughed and said, "Uh, no." That's when I saw The Internal Ultrasound Wand With The Condom On It. Ew!

But I took one for the team anyway and within seconds we were looking at... nothing. Well, okay, I saw what sort of looked like a uterine black hole, basically a black spot in the middle of the greyish stuff that is supposedly my uterus. He paused the picture and used a little pointer to show us where the baby was, which was on the side of the black spot and about the size of a grain of rice. Chris and I just looked at each other with the most hilarious sort of quizzical look on our faces. It didn't really look to me like he was convinced by the speck in the black hole, but eventually he started to smile and I felt his hand on my knee as the doctor told us in his broken English that so far, everything was good but that we will really know things are good when we see the heartbeat.

With that, he said I could go change and pay, and that I could make an appointment to come back in 2 weeks to see the heartbeat. So I did just that and pretty soon we were on our way to the donut stand in happy silence.