This is Part V of a series.
Click here to read from the beginning.
We’re behind on updating on our prenatal adventure, so here
is the short version:
Most expats always
go to Shanghai for their medical care.
However, because we live 4.5 hours away (by train or car), getting any
medical care becomes at least an overnight trip and usually a whole weekend is
used up, which isn’t very feasible to do for so many prenatal visits with a
toddler in tow. Because of that (and
also because of the cultural experience) we had been trying to utilize a Ningbo
hospital because it is a couple hours closer.
However, as mentioned in the last post, the Ningbo hospital is very much
a Chinese hospital. The only reason we
can go there at all is because they have a VIP clinic with a nurse who can
speak some English and help us navigate the craziness. However, even with this English speaking
nurse, the entire process is pretty convoluted for us. And they also don’t let the fathers in to see
the ultrasounds. Mark was very involved
in all of our prenatal care when we were pregnant with LiLi, so to be so
overtly excluded here is hard!
Therefore, on Dec. 3rd we went to Shanghai United
Family Hospital for the anatomy ultrasound that is done between 18-22 weeks
gestation because it is the important ultrasound during the pregnancy (and we
wanted competency) and also so Mark could be present for it. Besides, we wanted to know the sex of the
baby and, while it is technically illegal in China for the ultrasound tech to
tell us, the Western hospitals in Shanghai will. Based on my Ningbo Hospital due date, I was
21 weeks.
So the Dec. 3rd appointment was our first visit
to a Western hospital in China and we were glad to find it to be just like any
nice hospital it the States. The doctors
and nurses in the OB/GYN department all speak English and Mandarin (at least)
and many of the doctors were even U.S. trained.
The facilities are nice (the Ningbo hospital feels like you are at a
dirty, crowded bus station) and the procedures are all familiar to a Western
patient.
We waited for a bit for the ultrasound which actually gave
us a chance to assess the literature the hospital had posted in the waiting
area. We were quite pleased to see a lot
of info on breastfeeding, a birthing class for mom’s trying for a VBAC,
etc. Since China has a 50% c-section
rate (U.S. is high at ~35%) and only 20% of women breastfeed their babies for
at least 6 months (60% do in the U.S.), it was great to be in a place that
seems supportive of natural births and breastfeeding. Also, rather oddly, another couple with a
baby came into the waiting room that Mark recognized from his flight back to
China in September since they had chatted a bit during the flight. They had their first baby at Shanghai United
Family eight months earlier and were now there for their first visit pregnant
with baby #2. They were very happy to
tell us about their great birth experience at this hospital and how excited
they were to get to do it again so soon with baby #2. Certainly reassuring.
For the ultrasound we were taken into a family friendly room
with screens set up on the wall so the woman getting the ultrasound wouldn’t
even have to turn to see the image of the baby.
And there was seating for Mark and LiLi.
The tech was very friendly and chatted as she did the long
ultrasound. This is the one where they
take measurements of everything they can, so it takes about 30-40 minutes. Shortly after the ultrasound we then went to
meet with a doctor, who happened to be the head of the department and is a U.S.
trained doctor with flawless English.
We explained to Dr. Ji our situation – that we live far from
Shanghai and have been doing prenatal care in Ningbo but are not really fully
comfortable with the care provided at that hospital but also not happy about
the distance it takes to get to Shanghai.
Without flinching, she offered for us to have this baby in Shanghai and
recommended only coming back to Shanghai for “important” visits – the 26 week
glucose tolerance test, a 32 week third-trimester ultrasound they do since they
are based off of a European model (in the States, 12 weeks and 20 weeks are the
usual ultrasounds), the 36 week Strep B. test, and then temporarily move to the
city at 38 weeks so we are nearby for the delivery of the baby.
She also told us that the baby was measuring small, so I
gave her all my paperwork from Ningbo and, using the measurements from the
ultrasounds I had there, decided they had given me an incorrect due date. That is, the baby wasn’t small, I was just
only 19 weeks pregnant. So instead of
April 11th, the new due date is April 30th. While not normally a big deal, this has some
interesting ramifications for us since we live so far from Shanghai! For instance, we are not now scheduled to
move to Shanghai until after my original due date even. Oh well.
When my family visited in December, they brought with them a bunch of
supplies just so we can be prepared for a home birth if necessary (because
there is no way we’d go to the local Sanmen hospital for a birth and I am NOT
driving a long distance while in labor).
We also quizzed the doctor on our ability to have a birth
experience we want – i.e. with little professional intervention, particularly
from nurses (with LiLi it was just us and the midwife). We told her that we wanted a similar birth
experience to LiLi’s: no meds, no IV’s, intermittent fetal monitoring instead
of constant, lots of walking and various position, no heplock, freedom to eat
and drink as we choose, etc. While she
seemed surprised at how “free” we had been with LiLi’s birth, she seemed
completely willing to work with us and said that our birth experience goals
should be able to be achieved – though to bring our birth plan for review at
another visit. Anyway, we were very
impressed with this doctor and also the facilities. So it seems like a Shanghai birth it might
be…
We returned to Shanghai on Jan. 14th for the
glucose test. For some reason, instead
of doing the short screening test they have all the women do the longer
test. So that meant fasting the night
before and then sitting around for three hourly blood draws. I met with a doctor between blood draws and
it was a pretty routine visit. It was a
different doctor this time, so she was surprised to hear my due date had been
moved but also looked over all of my paperwork from Ningbo and came to the same
conclusion as Dr. Ji. So the April 30th
due date stands. They said they would
only call me if I “failed” the glucose test.
So no call = good news.
Since I had an early Sat. morning appointment, we decided we
would only stay in Shanghai one night this time instead of making it a weekend
trip. However, the transportation
coordinator for Mark’s company was unable to get us train tickets home for that
Saturday, he could only get us our tickets to Shanghai for Friday afternoon. So before leaving for Shanghai we decided we
would try to take a bus back to Sanmen if we couldn’t purchase the return train
tickets once we got to Shanghai (they often ‘save’ tickets for different
locations. So while the train is ‘sold
out’ in one location, you can still buy tickets at another station). When we got to Shanghai, the only available
tickets were for a 12:25PM train. We
didn’t think my appointment would be done in time to make it to the train
station, so we opted to not buy those tickets and to try our luck with a
bus. That was the beginning of a long
adventure…
So my appointment was actually done with enough time for us
to race to the train station and hope to still be able to buy the 12:25PM tickets
to Sanmen. No such luck – it was now
sold out (at least at the Shanghai Hongqiao Station…). So we go downstairs to where the long
distance buses leave from – as instructed to do by the transportation
coordinator. However, when we tried to
buy bus tickets to Sanmen we were told they didn’t have any. We now know that there is a bus to Sanmen
that leaves from the Shanghai South Railway Station, but not the Shanghai
Hongqiao Station. The person at the
counter did not communicate this to us though.
So instead, we bought a bus ticket to get to Ningbo – thinking that
there would be a lot more ‘regional’ buses going to Sanmen once we got two
hours closer. Our bus was leaving in 45
minutes, which seemed like a success.
The bus ride was uneventful.
LiLi slept for most of it. When
we got to Ningbo though and tried to buy tickets to Sanmen, we found out that
we would have to go to a different bus station within Ningbo to catch that
bus. Well, that is actually a little too
generous about how clear we were on what was going on. We were actually told they didn’t have any
buses and then we were handed a little slip of paper (think a piece of paper
the size of a Hersey Kiss paper plume) with an address and phone number on
it. We had no idea what it was, but
decided to try to get there.
We go outside to try to catch a taxi, but by now it is the time
of day when all the Ningbo taxi drivers seem to already have passengers. Oh, and did I mention it is pouring rain and
40 degrees? After unsuccessfully trying
to get a taxi for nearly an hour, we finally got an illicit “little blue” taxi
to take us. We negotiated a price of
Y30, about $4.75, and hopped in. At this
point we are wet and willing to pay a lot… but unfortunately the guy didn’t rip
us off. We think his price was Y30
because that is how many fingers he had.
We were hoping the place was just around the corner, but it was actually
a 20 minute drive squished inside this guys little blue taxi with our weekend
luggage.
When we get to this other station, we go in and Mark tries
to buy bus tickets for us. The first
lady tells him no and moves on to the next customer. Confused about what was going on (i.e. was
the bus sold out? Did that line not sell
tickets to Sanmen (sometimes the lines are destination dependent)? Did buses
not leave for Sanmen from this station?) he decided to try his luck at another
line. The lady at the counter in that
line said she had a bus ticket to Sanmen.
Success! However, when he then
asked for two tickets, she said no.
Apparently there was only one seat left on the bus.
Feeling dejected and quite wet (though LiLi was happy and
dry through the whole day), we decided to try to get to the Ningbo train
station and see if we could at least get a standing-room-only ticket to
Sanmen. We knew the last train of the
day to Sanmen left at 6:25PM, which meant we didn’t have much time to
spare. Unfortunately, taxis were still
nowhere to be found. A young couple with
a baby who also couldn’t get the bus tickets they needed then told us they were
also going to the train station and would help us get there via the public
bus. They spoke no English, so this was
all communicated in simple Mandarin. We
walked a little bit to a bus stop and were pleased to see a sign with the
Chinese characters for train station on it.
We had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus, and then we were on the bus
for another 30 minutes. Apparently we
were not as close to the train station as we had hoped.
We rush to the ticket counter at the Ningbo train station
and find we cannot get tickets to Ningbo still that day – the train had just
left. So now we are officially stranded
in Ningbo for the night. However, we
were able to buy train tickets for the first train going to Sanmen the next
morning (11:05AM).
So now we need a hotel. We know that if we got in the taxi line and
then just told the taxi driver to take us to a hotel, he would be confused and
would want a specific destination. So we
decide to try our luck with an illicit taxi driver instead since we would have
more time to explain our situation.
Knowing some Chinese hotels are questionable at best (you know, the ones
that charge by the hour…), we asked a young guy soliciting us for a taxi to
take us to a hotel for “laowei” (foreigners).
We agreed on a price and he took us to his van. I actually know the area around the train
station in Ningbo pretty well so I knew there were a lot of hotels around here
that would qualify as a “laowei” hotel.
However, this taxi driver took us out of the city. At which point Mark tries asking him where we
are going. He responded “Sān mén hédiàn”
– Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant. Wait, that
is two hours away… and while it would be nice to get home, it would cost like
$100, not the $8 we agreed to. So when
trying to confirm the price to make sure we weren’t about to get a “Yankee
Discount” we realized he was taking us to a hotel he thought people from our
site stay at.
The hotel was about a 25 minute drive
from the train station and was a Chinese hotel – but a nice one. We were wet and hungry, so we were just happy
to be somewhere for the night! Having
anticipated the possibility of getting stranded somewhere since we had gone to
Shanghai without a firm return plan, we had packed an extra day of
clothing. So it was nice to be able to
get dry before heading out to find dinner.
This hotel seemed to be in a new
area of Ningbo that doesn’t have much of anything yet, so we decided to try to
hotel restaurant. LiLi had a lot of
energy still since she had been “worn” by one of us for much of the day, so we
went to look at the fish tanks while Mark ordered our food. After a little bit, we returned to Mark and
he was still flipping through the menu.
There was nothing in it that looked palatable (and we aren’t very picky…). We didn’t really want to end a hard day with
a bad meal… so we decided to just leave instead. We ended up buying Ramen noodle-like packages
at the convenience store across the street and just brought it back to our hotel
room where we boiled some water. It was
actually a pleasant ending to the day.
The next day we decided to leave
plenty of time to get to the train station since available taxis seemed like a
scarce commodity and we were also in a less populated area of Ningbo. However, the hotel was able to hail us a taxi
pretty quickly so we had plenty of time to kill at the train station.
 |
| LiLi taking to some chickens at the Ningbo train station |
The train station was packed. Apparently all of our travel woes were
because it was 9 days before Chinese New Years and people were heading
home. I had actually moved my doctor’s
appointment from Jan. 21st to the 14th in order to try to
avoid the craziness. Since so many
Chinese people live far away from their family home, Chinese New Year might be
the only time they go home in a year. We
knew this, but we hadn’t anticipated how many would have also saved their
vacation time to use on the week before or week after Spring Festival! The crowded train station made for more
entertainment for LiLi though. She loved
the live chickens that were traveling too – as well as legs of pigs, etc.
We are blessed to have great
neighbors who didn’t mind keeping our dog Jiaozi for another night. In fact, they made it seem like their
pleasure… They have a puppy around the
same as Jiaozi (also a Chinese mutt), so apparently while we were getting wet
and stressing about trying to get home, our puppy was happily wrestling the day
away with his best dog friend Gracie.
It’s really nice to have great friends here who make stressful
situations manageable.
In retrospect, this transportation
adventure was worth it. We learned a lot
about navigating various transportation situations in a couple of cities. However, when in the midst of it (i.e. not yet
knowing the outcome) it can be quite frustrating! I feel so much sympathy for non-English
speaking immigrants to the States now.
Every day can certainly be an adventure.
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