As the weeks go by, I get emotional thinking about that moment. I wonder what the birth will be like? I wonder what it will be like to meet our little guy? Is this going to be easy? Is it going to be hard? Every day I do more and more research to make sure I’m not caught unprepared for anything else.
Of course you are never quite ready as a future parent. Unforeseen events always occur, the important thing is to keep them to a minimum. The fact is that nothing prepares you for the appearance in your life of a little man who, from the second second, will need you, you, non-stop. I’m glad baby let me do my workouts and keep the lifestyle I’ve had so far. The last month is a little easier because the belly is big and we have to be prepared in every way to wait for our little one.
So, for a while now I’ve been thinking more and more about the actual birth and the first moments with my baby boy. You’ve been asking me where I’m having the baby and with whom. I have always gone on feeling/positive energy, so I stuck to the doctor I went to for my first check-up, Dr Carmen Constantinescu from Regina Maria. It inspired confidence and security. I asked her questions whenever I was unsure about something, or had certain symptoms, and the answers were prompt and very clear. I thank them for that.
It is important to be an informed and informed parent, because only then can you make informed decisions. That is my advice to you too.
So I return to the doctor and the questions I asked him. As the visits materialized into a lot of responses (some I even wrote down on my phone so I wouldn’t forget), I learned even more about motherhood. Because it’s important to know the conditions in which you are going to give birth, how things will happen (logistically speaking :)) and what the safety conditions are, so that you know that you and the baby will come out of this whole story as safe as possible.
First of all, it was important for me to know if the environment is safe, friendly and comfortable, if there is a high degree of protection and safety against infections, if there are international quality standards, etc. If these things exist it means I can be sure that baby and I will be in good hands. For me this place was to be Queen Mary. Not to mention, it’s also 5 minutes from home, which makes me even happier.
But what I find most important is that in Baneasa Hospital there is a team of doctors with a lot of experience in maternal-fetal medicine, who perform very complex fetal interventions (I was amazed when I found out that a number of complex congenital malformations can be treated even before birth, even in the mother’s womb). Even in the case of normal pregnancies, choosing a maternity hospital that offers all these things is actually a safety net for mother and baby because, whatever happens, there is a super-specialized team of doctors who can intervene at any time in case of complications.
Beyond all that there is one other aspect that has mattered a lot to me, and that is the harvesting and storing of stem cells in the same place where I choose to give birth. When you have integrated services, you feel more confident, you know who to turn to and communication is much easier. And yes, it is a topic that has been intensely debated in recent years, with pros and cons from parents. We have read a lot on this subject and I really wanted to see exactly what happens in a stem cell bank, how things happen, how storage takes place.
So, I had the opportunity to take a tour of the Regina Maria Central Stem Cell Bank. I found it science fiction the way the storage is done, the conditions, the clean room…everything. On this occasion I learned that this bank is the first in Romania to become a member of the Cord Blood Association, an international professional association of public and private stem cell banks that aims to save lives, to improve people’s health.
From all the information I have carefully looked through, I found out that it is the only bank that guarantees processing and storage within 48 hours after birth (on average it takes even less, about 24 hours), almost 94% of the units stored in the bank are viable, at birth, the mother’s blood and cord blood are fully tested to international standards. I hope we will never need these cells, but we made this decision because if one of the family members is diagnosed with a serious illness, we will have a better chance for the family in case of a transplant.
I understand that umbilical cord blood will be collected at birth after the umbilical cord is cut and the good part is that the collection is painless and risk-free for me and my baby boy.
So far, so good. See you soon, with a new post, new information and sharing of my experience.
In the meantime, we keep our spirits up, and make healthy choices
AB
