Having a baby in Egypt is opening us up to many new cultural experiences. Some of which I'm sure I will enjoy, some of which I'm afraid I won't. This week we had our first pre-natal visit.
We headed across town, leaving our house around 1pm, thinking it would be a 30-40 minute drive, arriving a little early for a 2 pm appointment. Brian had mapped our route using Google Maps and our book of city maps. He has mad map navigational skills, so I was very confident of our success, until he handed me the map. Then I got nervous.
Our city has very few traffic lights and the few we have are ignored. Because of this, there are not many left-hand turns across traffic. They compensate (sort of) by using u-turns typically inconveniently placed. If there are street signs and if they are in English, (ever tried reading an Arabic street sign while driving down the road? It will make you question your religion.) they are vague and never where we think they should be to guide us beyond reasonable doubt. So most of our driving in new places is a fair amount of guess work.
We felt like we were fine, until we turned off of the main road into unfamiliar territory. I was pretty sure we turned off too soon, so to get us back in the direction we needed, I directed us through a neighborhood. By the time we got out of the neighborhood, I was very unsure of where we were on the map. Brian pulled over and tried to help, muttering something about "eight years of marriage and you still can't read a map." A little while later and I said, "We are on the wrong side of the bridge, going in the wrong direction." But by then we had the map thing figured out and knew where we were needing to be.
We arrived and parked around 2:30. Now, when I initially set up the appointment, I had asked for directions and the woman told me, "We are 12 Simon Street, across from the pharmacy." I thought, I have a husband who has mad navigational skills, so no problem. However, when we arrived at 12 Simon Street, there was no sign on the building saying something to the effect of "Doctor's office here". There was a pharmacy across the street. We walked into the building and it looked much like any other apartment building in our city. Again, no signs saying which floor the office was on or that the office was even there.
There were two men sitting by the door, so in my best Arabic, I asked about a doctor for a baby. He indicated the fifth floor. We got on the elevator and Brian shot a look at me that said, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" I wasn't sure either.
Until we got off on the fifth floor and the door in front of us had signs! Yes! We rang the doorbell and walked into a very normal looking pre-natal office. The walls were painted yellow and there were those pregnancy posters all over the walls. I spoke with the receptionist, expecting to be handed 15 forms to fill out, but all she asked was that I write down the correct spelling of my name.
We found places in the waiting room and sat down to wait. After discussing all the posters with Emily and Savannah, they were excited to find a large pile of children's books in English. After a seemingly long wait, we were called back to see the doctor.
One of the things I noticed was that there were four rooms, all labeled something different. There was the doctor's office, the exam room, the ultrasound room, and the room where they take blood. We were ushered into the doctor's office. We met the doctor and chatted about my previous pregnancies and I asked some questions about her c-section procedures.
We were then sent to the exam room with the doctor and we had a typical pre-natal exam. Weight, blood pressure and we listened to the heart beat for the very first time!
Then we had blood drawn for blood work. One little needle prick and one vial of blood and we were finished. Emily sat in the waiting room, but Savannah stood next to me and watched. The nurse was appreciative of her interest and gave her six band-aids so she "could practice on her doll at home."
While I was having my blood drawn, Brian was standing in the hall with Sophie, chatting with the Doctor's husband, who is the ultrasound technician and anesthesiologist. He was quite taken with Sophie.
Next, we went into the ultrasound room for our first peak at our baby. It is a very busy little person in there! Our baby was very wiggly and perfectly healthy. Emily loved watching the baby and kept exclaiming, "Our baby is so adorable!"
On our way out, we chatted with the receptionist and the ultrasound tech/anesthesiologist about which was the best way to come across town and which day would have the least amount of traffic as we scheduled our second appointment.
It was amazing to see our new little baby-person and made it more real for Emily and Savannah.
We headed across town, leaving our house around 1pm, thinking it would be a 30-40 minute drive, arriving a little early for a 2 pm appointment. Brian had mapped our route using Google Maps and our book of city maps. He has mad map navigational skills, so I was very confident of our success, until he handed me the map. Then I got nervous.
Our city has very few traffic lights and the few we have are ignored. Because of this, there are not many left-hand turns across traffic. They compensate (sort of) by using u-turns typically inconveniently placed. If there are street signs and if they are in English, (ever tried reading an Arabic street sign while driving down the road? It will make you question your religion.) they are vague and never where we think they should be to guide us beyond reasonable doubt. So most of our driving in new places is a fair amount of guess work.
We felt like we were fine, until we turned off of the main road into unfamiliar territory. I was pretty sure we turned off too soon, so to get us back in the direction we needed, I directed us through a neighborhood. By the time we got out of the neighborhood, I was very unsure of where we were on the map. Brian pulled over and tried to help, muttering something about "eight years of marriage and you still can't read a map." A little while later and I said, "We are on the wrong side of the bridge, going in the wrong direction." But by then we had the map thing figured out and knew where we were needing to be.
We arrived and parked around 2:30. Now, when I initially set up the appointment, I had asked for directions and the woman told me, "We are 12 Simon Street, across from the pharmacy." I thought, I have a husband who has mad navigational skills, so no problem. However, when we arrived at 12 Simon Street, there was no sign on the building saying something to the effect of "Doctor's office here". There was a pharmacy across the street. We walked into the building and it looked much like any other apartment building in our city. Again, no signs saying which floor the office was on or that the office was even there.
There were two men sitting by the door, so in my best Arabic, I asked about a doctor for a baby. He indicated the fifth floor. We got on the elevator and Brian shot a look at me that said, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" I wasn't sure either.
Until we got off on the fifth floor and the door in front of us had signs! Yes! We rang the doorbell and walked into a very normal looking pre-natal office. The walls were painted yellow and there were those pregnancy posters all over the walls. I spoke with the receptionist, expecting to be handed 15 forms to fill out, but all she asked was that I write down the correct spelling of my name.
We found places in the waiting room and sat down to wait. After discussing all the posters with Emily and Savannah, they were excited to find a large pile of children's books in English. After a seemingly long wait, we were called back to see the doctor.
One of the things I noticed was that there were four rooms, all labeled something different. There was the doctor's office, the exam room, the ultrasound room, and the room where they take blood. We were ushered into the doctor's office. We met the doctor and chatted about my previous pregnancies and I asked some questions about her c-section procedures.
We were then sent to the exam room with the doctor and we had a typical pre-natal exam. Weight, blood pressure and we listened to the heart beat for the very first time!
Then we had blood drawn for blood work. One little needle prick and one vial of blood and we were finished. Emily sat in the waiting room, but Savannah stood next to me and watched. The nurse was appreciative of her interest and gave her six band-aids so she "could practice on her doll at home."
While I was having my blood drawn, Brian was standing in the hall with Sophie, chatting with the Doctor's husband, who is the ultrasound technician and anesthesiologist. He was quite taken with Sophie.
Next, we went into the ultrasound room for our first peak at our baby. It is a very busy little person in there! Our baby was very wiggly and perfectly healthy. Emily loved watching the baby and kept exclaiming, "Our baby is so adorable!"
On our way out, we chatted with the receptionist and the ultrasound tech/anesthesiologist about which was the best way to come across town and which day would have the least amount of traffic as we scheduled our second appointment.
It was amazing to see our new little baby-person and made it more real for Emily and Savannah.
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