Since our little girl still hasn't arrived I thought I'd share a little bit about our hospital and the medical care we're receiving here. First of all we're very thankful that we can have our little girl right here in Van. Only a few years ago, usually foreigners traveled to Istanbul or Ankara or back to the States to have their babies. Now that we have sufficient health care here, we can stay home. And especially now that she's deciding to show up a bit late, that's a blessing! We probably would have already been away from home for a month or more now if we would have had to travel somewhere else to wait for her arrival.
Our hospital is
Medical Park. You can click on the link for their English website & pictures of the Van hospital. (They didn't ask for our help with the English, so it might be a little choppy, but we're probably one of the only English speaking patients they have anyway, and we know Turkish).
On the topic of language, our appointments and interactions at the hospital are usually in Turkish. A lot of the doctors do know English (there are two doctor 'tracks' in the universities here - English or Turkish), but don't have the opportunity to practice speaking it very often so they're usually more comfortable in Turkish. In fact we are usually too, since it seems potentially less gets lost in translation - we understand Turkish (especially Dan) better than the doctors can speak English.
This is what an appointment usually consists of...
- We arrive and check-in with the special administrator, not the normal check-in way, since we're foreigners and usually confuse the normal check-in girls since we don't have some of the necessary numbers that other Turkish citizens have (like a social security type identity number). We used to think we should have an appointment but have since realized that we don't really need one, so we just show up - usually in the morning (about 9am) since it's the least busy at that time. They don't really see patients before 9am.
- We head upstairs to the doctor's office and start by going across the hall to a nurse who takes my weight and blood pressure.
- Then we wait outside the doctor's office in the hallway (lined with chairs) with the other patients & their husbands or moms or sisters. Seemingly we usually get called in for our appointment fairly quickly, we're not sure if we get special treatment because we're foreigners or if we just don't fully understand the system. When you think about the huge waiting rooms in the States with magazines and toys, it almost makes us laugh that we wait in the hallway... but really it's a better use of overall space and people here don't feel like they need to have a whole chair between them and the stranger sitting next to them in the waiting room (I mean really have you EVER been to the doctors office and waiting room was full??? except the ER). Usually the women are all sitting in the chairs and the men are standing.
- Eventually we get called in to the doctors office. The first room has the doctor's desk with a computer and a few chairs. Her administrative assistant is also there to help enter data into the computer as well as other tasks. Often there are multiple women in this room and you talk with the doctor in their presence (making patient privacy something of little value). You find out the other women's problems, what they need to be doing, hear the doctor scolding them for this or that, not a lot of privacy - but really what are you going to do with that information anyway? Then I hand the doctor my weight & blood pressure readings for her to look at. Early on in my pregnancy I got scolded almost every time for not gaining enough weight, although little girl has always been doing fine and growing like she should.
- Next the doctor sends me back to the examination room - and I can call Dan into the office at this point to come with me into the examination room (men aren't usually in the first office). Here I get an ultrasound - at every appointment. This is also where we have conversations about what I should be doing, what to expect, I can ask questions I might have, etc - all during the ultrasound. Typically women here don't ask questions or have opinions about what should or should not be done since they usually don't have or seek out the loads of information we have in the States. So we're sure we ask more questions than the typical patient.
- Early on in the pregnancy at this point I was done with my appointment but in the last couple months, we've added doing a Non-Stress Test at ever appointment as well. So after my ultrasound I head back across the hall to the weight and blood pressure nurse and she hooks me up to the non-stress test machine. Dan gets to come back with me to this room which is nice. After she hooks me up I lay there for around 10-15 minutes while the machine tests Baby Girl's heart rate and movements. Then she hands me the result page and I bring it over the doctor to show her and then I get to bring the paper home.
During a Non-Stress Test a Few Weeks Ago
- During the course of the pregnancy we also had a deep ultrasound twice (which shows deeper problems), blood tests (twice), and the gestational diabetes test - all standard procedures, not because there were potential problems.
- Finally we head back downstairs to the administrators office to pay our bill, probably have a cup of tea and chat with him and others in his office, and finally head on home.
We're headed to the doctor again this morning for another ultrasound and non-stress test, but we hope this will be our last and little girl will show herself soon!
