Doctor's Appointment

We just had our second doctor's appointment. (All is well and no, we don't know if it is a boy or girl yet. :) About halfway through the experience I began thinking about all the times people had talked about pre-natal appointments. This was nothing like those descriptions!

Make Appointment:

~Text Doctor R. at 9:30pm Friday night. Their email has been down for several weeks and their cellphone coverage is not good. However, they can get text messages.

~Relay message through her husband and set appointment up for the next morning. He called, not her, because they have to go a distance away from their house in order to find cellphone coverage.

~Saturday morning, call at pre-arranged time to confirm we will be able to make it.

Travel to Hospital:

~Call our weekend guard to come early and watch the house while we are gone.

~Radio our boss to confirm permission to use the plane and make arrangements for radio contact during the flight.

~Drive to the airport, prep. plane, and file paperwork.

~Fly...the hospital we are going to is in a village a 10-minute flight away (around 2 hours by road.)

The Visit:

~Walk from airstrip into town. Normally around 5 minutes up hill. It had rained that morning so it was a little slower going this time as the mud clumped up on our shoes and my stamina is not what it was a few months ago!

~Arrive at the reception area just as Doctor R. arrives on her four-wheeler.

~Get ushered into the exam room and chat in English with Doctor R. as we wait for the other medical staff to finish some paperwork from a previous patient and clear the room.

~Chat in French with the aid as she takes my blood pressure and weight.

~Now the fun part...Talk with Doctor R. in English while she converses with the aid in Swahili mixing in French as she goes and then back into English with us!

~Next up the Ultra sound. Lock the door, but the curtains are wide open and I can watch doctors and patients walk by on the sidewalk just outside. Ah, Congolese privacy...But, hey, we get to see our baby and hear his/her heart beat nice and strong!

~More tri-lingual conversation as we discuss weight gain...Doctor R. thinks I’m fine, but the aid looks concerned. Did a lot of reading when I got home and called my mom. All is fine. :)

~We talk alot about traveling pregnant. We are planning on coming back to Washington for the baby’s birth and Doctor R. thinks that will be just fine. (Now we just need to find tickets!!!!)

Scheduling the Next Visit:

~We figure out how many more appointments I will have before I leave and plan on my next one being mid-October.

~“Thankyou”, “Merci”, “Asante” passed around and we head back to the airstrip for the trip home. The whole thing took about 2.5 hours.