The English Patient

I'm officially a patient at Saint Mary's Hospital in Montreal, QC!

It's such a relief to have that all finalized, after 3 grueling hours today, waiting in lines, being poked and prodded, throwing up in waiting rooms... you get the picture :)

I heard from Loni that her OBGYN was amazing, so I called her up and thankfully she can see me throughout my pregnancy... but not until MARCH 2! That's like 1.5 whole months from where we are right now. However, her intense secretary said that cancellations are common, so chances are I could see Dr. Hall in February or even January (if I'm really lucky!) but I'd have to get my preliminaries done ASAP since who knows, they could call me tomorrow and ask to see me Thursday ... a girl can dream right?

So Brad and I head to Dr. Hall's office this morning for 10am. Who would have known she was in a building of like a thousand other OBGYNs? We finally found her after a not so easy running through the halls reading names on doors and several elevator rides up and down ( read: setting the mood for barf). Paper work - and it was work - had to be done (don't you wish these forms were electronic? I wrote my address 5 times in a row) but then we were sent to St. Mary's which was just down the road for all the tests.

Blood, urine, booking appointments for the ultrasound. All kind of nerve wracking and I was thankful Brad was able to take the 3 hours away from work to be with me. The largest reason I wanted him with me was I was assuming there would be a lot more French in the health system, and as an Anglo patient, who speaks worse French when shes stressed and tired (i.e. TODAY), I didn't want to miss anything. But I was so impressed at the complete bi-lingual nature of the hospital - every form, nurse, doctor, orderly, sign, label. Everything. When they were calling our number we even listened and heard "FORTY-TWO, QUARANTE-DEUX!" How encouraging. See even Dr. Hall speaks perfect English but I was worried if I go into labour and she's not on call I may get a Francophone Doctor and miss a lot of what's happening. Likely not the case after my experience today.

So I got my hospital admittance card, a huge text book of all the rights and regulations in the province of Quebec for parents (like did you know they'll plant a tree for our child if we request it? For free. A tree. To set it's carbon offset and to GROW WITH THEM. AW!) Love it.

I also learned we'll get $100/baby/month and more after 3 babies, and $55/month is MINE just for breastfeeding. To encourage women that "breast is best" the government of QC is paying me to do it! Thank you very much QC!

It was definitely a long day and I have a fear of needles so the whole blood part wasn't my favourite, but having Brad there through it all was amazing. We made jokes about unnecessary hospital positions (like the man who just called out the numbers in the waiting room, though even the deli has a computer that flashes the number instead!) and dreamed of how different our lives will be the next time we leave St. Marys - on a warm August day with a new baby :)