Due January/February 2012 Thread

rylie wrote: »

Good luck today red fraggle!

Cottontail congrats on being 14 weeks, I've a busy (crazy) toddler as well and I'm finding this time around sooooo much harder!

Quins5 12 weeks- ya lucky duck!

I'm not sure what to do about telling work- I'm 100% showing, not just "has rylie put on a couple of pounds" but proper, sticky outy belly showing :eek: Should I just tell them now or wait till after my scan next week? I havent a hope of getting to 12 weeks without someone asking if I've any news
I'm amazed how quickly I've popped this time around, cottontail are you finding the same or is it just me?!

Okay, here's what I've gotten from my research.Now, this is assuming that you have the standard amount of health insurance (VHI Plan B or similar, though you should check exactly what benefits your plan covers).Private: You can either go private in public hospital, like Holles St, or in a private hospital like Mount Carmel.

From what I can see, going private costs about €8,000 (5,000 on consultants fees, 3,000 on private room for 3 nights), with your health insurance covering half that cost. When you claim back your tax on the remainder (@ 20%), you'd be paying in the region of €3,200. It's a bit cheaper to go private in a public hospital than in a private one.

Private gets you
1) A near guarantee of seeing the same consultant throughout your pregnancy.
2) A private room for 3 nights once the baby is born, or 5 nights if you have a C-section.

The purported benefits of going private are the consistency of care, the fact that a consultant is going to be better academically qualified and may pick up on a complication which would slip past a doctor on call or a midwife, and the fact that you get a private room. You can also have early scans if you want.

And the wait for appointments is not as long as in semi-private or public clinics.The drawbacks are;
1) The cost
2) Your consultant may be on holidays or off duty when you go into labour, so it may be a different consultant delivering your baby.
3) If you are in a public hospital, there may be no private rooms available. They do not guarantee their availabilty. So you may end up spending a portion or the whole of your post-birth stay in a semi-private or public ward. You will still pay the same fees to the hospital.
4) Specifically in relation to Mount Carmel, they do not have an emergency facility. Given that they regularly carry out c-sections, I don't really know what the true risk of this is, but I have heard stories of women having to be rushed to Holles St in emergency situations. Not ideal as you can imagine.

Semi Private
You can go semi private in a public hospital, or indeed in a private hospital. Semi private costs vary. It's €900 altogether in Holles St (I don't know whether that's before or after the tax deduction). It's €1,300 in Mount Carmel, after the health insurance and tax deduction.

Semi private gets you;
a) Clinic appointments with the consultant on call. The hospital will try to ensure that you have the same consultant on each visit and on delivery day, but don't guarantee it.
b) Accomodation in a semi private ward, which varies from hospital to hospital. In Mount Carmel, there are two people and four people wards. In Holles St there are four people and six people wards.Drawbacks are:Again, no guarantee of consistency of care. And no guarantee of getting a semi private ward if the hospital is busy. This is less of an issue in MC as they don't have public wards.

Again, you still pay the fees if you end up in a public ward. The semi private clinics in public hospitals are usually just as busy as the public clinics (if not more so).Public:Now, this is I think how it works. You get seen by the public hospital midwives and the doctor on call at each appointment.

After the birth you are placed in a public ward, which usually has about 8 people in it. You have one scan at 20-ish weeks. You're not entitled to any further scans unless there is a problem with the pregnancy.

Labour ward midwives will deliver your baby, and a consultant will only attend at the very end of the delivery and usually only when there is a complication.
Benefits;
a) It's free
b) From what I am told the standard of care is very high in the public clinics - not much different from the semi-private or private clinics.

Drawbacks
a) No consistency of care
b) Noisy and perhaps chaotic ward after the birth

Personally, I'm taking a fourth choice - the Domino Scheme. It's a midwives clinic that is attached to Holles St.
All your appointments are with the midwives, with a consultant only getting involved if the midwives spot a problem.

The advantages are that;
a) The clinics are less busy and therefore you don't have to wait for your appointment;
b) The midwives have a huge bank of experience which, in my opinion, probably equals that of the consultants.
c) You can take the option of the "early transfer home" scheme where you are (assuming a straightforward birth) discharged 6-12 hours after the birth and the midwives come and visit you every day for 10 days after the birth to assist you with breast feeding etc. This appeals to me as I hate hospitals.
d) The ethos of the Domino Scheme is to anticipate a straightforward, natural birth. So they are quite happy for you to give birth in any position (rather than on a bed on your back, which is apparently the most uncomfortable but the easiest access), and are not so ready to induce/use forceps/c-section unless it is necessary, rather than being just "hospital policy" as happens in the main hospitals.

The Domino Scheme is only offered for certain cachement areas around the hospitals that provide it, so that is a drawback.