Early Glimpses

I ended up with what I think is an unusually high amount of ultrasounds during my pregnancy.  I didn’t mind though because it was nice to keep an eye on Jack. 

The very first ultrasound was when I was only 5 weeks pregnant.  I had a bit of a scare so we went to the emergency room at the hospital across the street from my building.  The rushed me through triage and did an ultrasound to detect the heartbeat (not even a guarantee at this early stage).  Jack’s heart, however, was pumping strong and steady, safe within me.  It made me cry (along with pretty much everything else I was to encounter for the rest of my pregnancy).  There was no visual with this ultrasound, but I was really sad that Harold was in a different room for the first heartbeat.  The hospital, in a Hong Kong fashion that I have really come to appreciate, erred on the side of caution and zipped me by ambulance to a nearby hospital that has an antenatal ward (the hospital where Jack was born), and admitted me for the night so they could keep an eye on things.  Obviously, everything was fine.  (I went from being at my own home to having a bed at the second hospital in less than an hour.  I really can’t say enough good about the efficiency of the Hong Kong public hospitals.)

Upon discharge, I was put on bedrest for an amount of time I just can’t remember now (again, erring on the side of caution).  I missed two birthday parties and one Christmas party, and went back to work for one day before heading to Canada for the holidays.  In that time, we wanted to see our little guy to make sure everything was still alright and I kept crying because Harold hadn’t heard the heart yet.  Many obgyns here have their own ultrasound machine in their office so I went to my private doctor and had an ultrasound.  Jack was doing great and we could see his little heart beating away.  For anyone who happens to come across this in a web search, if you are looking to supplement your public hospital care with a few private scans and checkups, I highly recommend you go to the New Territories.  It’ll be a fraction of the cost. 

My picture is the one on the right.  I was comparing it to the left one of twins on the internet because I thought mine looked like twins too.  Spoiler alert: it wasn't.

At 12 weeks, we had a standard scan at the hospital.  At this point, we found out that Jack was a boy.  Super early, but super obvious!  I also found out I had an anterior placenta, which means that everything is fine, but the placenta was attached to the front of my uterus instead so I’d be less likely to feel Jack.  However, I ended up feeling my super active boy very early on (I think it was about 14 weeks).   Through the whole pregnancy, except for the last few weeks, I did go for days at a time without feeling him because all the action was cushioned by the placenta.  For some really weird reason, they won’t print out a copy of the 12 week scan for the parents to keep.  However, they do give you an envelope to bring to another area of the hospital, so if you’re really careful with the opening the envelope, you can take a picture of the picture before delivering it. 

12 weeks <3

At 18 weeks, we had another standard scan (this time privately because the hospital was overbooked).  We got to count his little fingers and toes.  <3  The whole session was being recorded but I didn’t realize, so we actually have a video of it.  Unfortunately the video has audio and therefore captured me asking stupid questions that only a derpy pregnant lady would think of like, “Whoa!  Are those his brain waves?” when referring to a close-up of blood flowing in an out of the heart.

Structural scan.  How cute is that femur?

 At 25 weeks, I had some serious cramping so I went to emergency again.  Within about 10 minutes they had me in for a scan and I saw him happily sucking his thumb and hiccupping.  He had the hiccups ALL THE TIME in those days and still gets them quite often.  No pictures of that scan.  

At 30 weeks, we went to Annerley Midwives Clinic for a 4D ultrasound.  We actually ended up going twice (once for free) because Jack wouldn’t cooperate.  He faced backwards so we got a lot of really good shots of his spine, and we must have caught him during his afternoon nap.   The second time, I chugged a lot of orange juice before we went and it did work to make him move around but he was still facing backwards for most of it.  When he turned around, he was playing with his umbilical cord or putting his feet in his face, so we could see his very active personality, but seeing his face was going to be a lost cause.  These were the closest we could get, but they were just fleeting moments.

Only eight weeks to go…

Public or Private

When you find out you are pregnant in Hong Kong, the first thing you need to do is visit a doctor (any clinic or general practitioner will do) to verify your pregnancy and get a referral notice.  The next step is to decide if you want to use this referral notice to navigate the private or public hospital system.  There are pros and cons of each.  You can only go to the public hospital in your region but you can go to any private hospital.  It’s all about weighing those pros and cons and deciding what is important for you and your family. 

 

The hospital I gave birth at, Tuen Mun, has a bit of a reputation for being awful… so much so that people get their utility bills or bank statements sent to a friend’s house so they can register at a hospital in a different region.  Tuen Mun’s bad reputation is a bit outdated.  It is one of the closest hospitals to the Chinese border so it used to be very overcrowded with Chinese ladies wanting their children to be born in Hong Kong.  There are now measures in place so that only Hong Kong residents can give birth at the hospitals here (unless there is an emergency), so the extreme overcrowding is no longer an issue.  I have friends who switched to different public hospitals for other reasons, or chose to go private, and I fully support them.  However, overall, I was pleased with my experience at Tuen Mun and I’d do it that way again.  

As a Canadian, I can’t wrap my head around paying for healthcare, so that was a huge factor for me.  (Prices I talk about are in US $ because that’s a currency most people are familiar with without having to look it up.)  This is just my experience and I know it varies widely between hospitals, and even between patients.  I know everyone has their own reasons for choosing certain things and if the end result is a healthy baby and mommy, that’s what matters.

My view from the hospital

Public Pros

It’s pretty much free.  I paid about $10 US per night in the hospital, and that included absolutely everything (medicine, dr fees, anesthetic, shots, etc.)  I had a few overnight stays while I was pregnant too, and that was also the same price.  All my antenatal appointments were free at the hospital and all Jack’s and my follow-up appointments are also free (including all his vaccinations) at our local clinic.

Top-notch medical care.  Even if you are in a private hospital and something goes wrong, they will transfer you and/or the baby to a public hospital.  Many of the public hospitals are teaching hospitals so the standards are very high. 

Pro-breastfeeding and rooming in with the baby.  There are signs all over the hospital stating how very in support of breastfeeding they are and it really is true.  They had lactation consultants checking on me all the time and the nurses were so excited that I was breastfeeding.  However, the majority of the Hong Kong population still thinks that formula is best so, in my ward of 30 women, I was the only one with my baby in my bed, breastfeeding on demand.  The education on breastfeeding here is somewhat lacking (but this goes for the private hospitals too).  Many women here intend to breastfeed but turn to formula in the first few days because their milk hasn’t come in yet (and they don’t realize that’s normal).  Then when it came time to discharge us, they almost weren’t going to because they said Jack had lost too much of a percentage of his birth weight.  By formula standards, he had, and that is what the hospital goes by in their charts.  I had to prove to them that the stats are different with breastfeeding babies.  Eventually, the nurses brought in a pediatrician to confirm what I was saying and we were allowed to leave.  So while the good intentions are definitely there and breastfeeding is encouraged, a bit of education is needed in this relatively new field for them.  

Public Cons

Very bureaucratic to the point where they have trouble thinking outside the box.  This is just Hong Kong in general, but it’s all the more frustrating when you’re full of hormones.  I needed a c-section for medical reasons and it was very stressful that they wouldn’t confirm it “in case something changes”, despite my condition being chronic.

You stay in a ward with other women and babies after the birth.  This didn’t bother me a bit, but it may bother others.  In fact, it probably did bother the others in my ward because I had referred shoulder pain (common after abdominal surgery) so I spent the first night wailing.  Sorry, ladies!

Not focused on the father’s involvement.  This was probably the most troublesome con.  Fathers can only come in the delivery room when the mother is in active labour and the baby is crowning.  For my c-section, we had a meeting with the hospital staff ahead of time to beg for Harold to come in.  He still couldn’t (because it had never been done before so there wasn’t a protocol for it… see above statement about not thinking outside the box) but we compromised on him coming into the recovery room immediately after.  They also let me bring a CD into the operating room, made especially by Harold as my birthing soundtrack. 

Crowded waiting rooms.  Public system waiting rooms look worse than they are.  They are actually organized and efficient, so you just have to ignore the mass of people surrounding you and listen for the bastardization of your name to be called over the intercom.  “Step Blank”, “Lynn Le Stifny”,  “Father’s name: Stephanie”

The crappiest visiting hours EVER, with only 3 hours at night and 1 hour during lunch.  The Middle East and Asia were having an outbreak of potential pandemic proportions (that never escalated in our area) so visiting times were scaled back even further while I was hospitalized. I hate that they don’t value family time, but we tried to look at my hospital stay as just a few days out of our lives and stay focused on the big picture.  Visiting hours were chaotic anyway, so I can kind of understand not wanting that to happen all day long.

Getting prepped for the c-section

Private Pros

You are the patient of a specific doctor, so you don’t have to explain the same things over and over, or wait for someone to read your chart. 

More personalized service where patients’ needs are accessed on an individual basis

Rooms have been compared to a luxury hotel

There is an ultrasound at every appointment (could be a con though, as you are paying for this and the effect of having so many ultrasounds is unknown).

Private Cons

You know that down-payment for a house you’ve been saving for?  Consider it gone. (Seriously, about $21,000 US, on average)

High pressure to schedule a c-section.  Hong Kong has a very high c-section rate, but in the private system, many patients and doctors alike prefer to schedule a c-section for non-medical reasons.  Also, the threshold at which emergency c-sections happen is a lot lower than other countries because Hong Kongers really like to err on the side of caution.  This can actually be a pro if you really want to schedule a c-section for some reason.
 
Some hospitals have babies stay in a nursery where the mom can only visit at specified breastfeeding times.  I have a friend who had a c-section and couldn’t get out of bed for the first few days.  She had wanted to breastfeed but no one would bring her baby to her and she couldn’t make it to the nursery so the nurses just started giving her baby formula.  Again, if your focus is on getting yourself relaxed and rested, this can actually be a pro.     

So there’s the admittedly biased pros and cons list.  I couldn’t go into too much detail for the private hospitals because I only have other people’s stories to go by.  And I kind of lost steam about halfway through writing this.  

Mommy and Jack, shortly after birth

Welcome to the world, baby Jack!