Midwives
In Germany, midwives are very important to the process of pregnancy, giving birth, and after birth care. The German medical system will pay for as many home visits from the midwife you need after the baby is born. They’ll even pay for a person to come clean, cook and shop for you if you’ve had a particularly hard birth and need some extra help around the house. However, we don’t fall under the German system. We have international health insurance which pays for all our expenses except midwives. There is someone with our organization working hard to change this, but until then, all these expenses come out of pocket. I’m finding that midwives provide a very valuable service here. Some of those services are providing exercise classes, a check up between Dr. visits (or in the place of), and a preparation for birth class. The latter is what I was most interested in recently as all the preparation courses here are in German. Now, our German is pretty good, but honestly, we miss stuff (especially in a classroom setting) and I was afraid that the things we’d miss would be VERY important. So we finally found a midwife who studied in Britain and speaks excellent English. What a blessing she has already been. We met with her this morning for an hour and we plan on doing a private preparation course with her. In just that hour, she explained things to us that we had no clue about. I’m a big fan of learning as much as possible because then the prospect of it all doesn’t seem so scary! So we’ll continue to meet with her 5 more times and I’m very excited about this time.
So this truly has been a tremendous blessing – to find an English speaking midwife who can prepare us for what lies ahead. God has provided!
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Happy to hear of the Lord’s provision! That’s great! Sounds like they are more “advanced there”?
I know I had a friend who was a mid-wife and I had the privaledge of helping her after two knee surgeries, to take her to work. She was in-servicing hospital nurses on mid-wifery and the birth process. It sure was educational and eye opening. Never made sense why “traditional medicine” didn’t use the “natural process” to facilitate a birth”. Maybe it is a “control” issue or a $$ issue?? Glad you are feeling alot more relaxed about it. Knowing what to expect helps! But of course we will pray.
wish I could be there! glad to hear that you found some help and have gotten some peace about it all through the process. Can’t imagine how I’ll wait to meet my niece till you all come back to the states, but I guess I’ll have to!
Be assured that we are preparing ourselves. We’re reading the Bradley Method book and although we may not buy into everything it says, it’s good preparation for the delivery and it prepares Thadd to be my coach. Right now, we don’t have anyone coming for the birth because it’s kind of hard to plan that. I could be anywhere from 2 weeks early to 2 weeks late and I’d hate for someone to be here just waiting for the baby to be born. But both of you are welcome to come anytime. We obviously don’t want anyone quitting their job to come as seriously, we’ll be okay. We have a really strong support system here with our friends and colleagues and will be well taken care of. And really, the medical system here is great and we’ve only heard great things about delivering in the hospital. So don’t worry about us!
So, could I come over and live with you and be your ‘midwife’? I mean, I don’t really know much about birthing but I’d love to help with my niece! =)
See if there is a Couple to Couple League couple near you! Or a Lamaz mother… Is your Mom or sister going to be with you? I would love to come; I would quit this, even this job in a minute!
The midwife I’m meeting with for my preparation course works in a Birth House. It’s a really neat place and I might have considered it, but right now, the cheapest option is the hospital and the hospital here also offers many of the same things as the Birth House. So I’m sure the experience will be good at the hospital too. Just in the hour I met with her, I already feel it’s not so scary as I thought. It really is quite a miracle how God made our bodies to do that and I’m blessed to be apart of that!
Sounds like a great plan. Too bad you cant take advantage of the German health care…they are really lucky! Anyway, just relax about it. Its not so scary. But do educate yourself, like you said.
Our situation is complicated, but since we work for an American company here, our visas are different and we don’t have to pay taxes. If we did pay taxes, we’d fall under the German system as well. Actually, with the money they give families each month for each child, paying taxes is actually a positive thing!
When we were in England, our work visas (and tax paying) put us in the National Health System. Midwives are important in there too — they do pretty much everything related to birth; doctors are called in pretty much only if complications arise. Plus there are home visits before and after.