Romanian Pregnancy

I realize that our baby is now almost 3 months old (HOW?!), so maybe it seems like kind of an after-thought to blog about pregnancy now. But if you have children, you know that there isn't much time for blogging in the first few months after having a baby! Now that I'm starting to breathe again, I thought I'd share a little about my experience of being pregnant and prenatal care in Romania.

First, let's talk money. We have a socialized health care system here, which means we all pay for state health insurance out of our paychecks every month, and this covers basic medical services. Some pregnant women choose to use a private hospital, where you pay for everything from checkups to blood tests to birth, but in theory, you can get away with minimal costs by using public health care. I say "in theory" because this depends on how many of the public services you use.

Most doctors work with public hospitals in addition to having their own private offices, usually in clinics with other doctors. Typically they will be at the hospital in the morning and take appointments at their offices in the afternoon. My doctor has two offices in a network of private clinics, one in Timisoara and one here in Lugoj. I paid for most of my checkups and blood tests at her offices, but she did some of the more expensive tests (like the one where they check for genetic disorders) for free at the hospital she works with in Timisoara. I really appreciated this, because she could've done all of those tests at the clinic and made more profit. One exception was the 4D ultrasound, which had to be done at the clinic with the head doctor there. In the last month of my pregnancy, when I had to go every week, I only saw my doctor at the hospital (read: free).

Overall, we spent around 3,125 Lei on prenatal care -- about $800. About two-thirds of that amount was from blood work and other tests that I wasn't proactive about getting covered by insurance. Again, I could've spent even less by only using the public hospital, or even more by going exclusively private, but I preferred this combination and it worked well for us.

Now, as far as the process of doctor's visits, this is pretty much how things went:

The doctor gave me a schedule showing when I would need to go to her main office in Timisoara (instead of Lugoj) or to the hospital, depending on what tests needed to be done each month, and she called me any time something changed. I usually only made my office appointments a week in advance, and if I had to go to the hospital, she would call and tell me which day and what time to go depending on her schedule. I would call or text her when I got there, and she'd either meet me at the door or tell me where to go in the hospital.

I also had a list of blood work to have done throughout my pregnancy, which I could either do at the clinic or at another lab, depending on where I found better prices. Public insurance funds are limited each month for free blood work, and require you to get a referral from your family doctor, but I usually managed to get some of mine paid for. I was responsible for picking up the results and getting them to the doctor. The first month, I happened to be leaving for America the following week. No problem -- I accessed my blood work on the lab's website, emailed the results to my doctor, then used WhatsApp to call her and make sure everything looked ok. After that, I usually took results with me to my appointments. Sometimes she would call to make sure I didn't forget, or would ask me to send the results the night before so she could look over them.

I continuously checked pregnancy websites from the US to compare tests and procedures, and found very few differences. I had an ultrasound at every appointment, always performed by the doctor. I had instructions to take my blood pressure and pulse every week, which I did with our school nurse or at home (otherwise I would've gone to my family doctor, I guess). I never did the glucose tolerance test, which I'm assuming is because I didn't show any signs of diabetes. In the last month before my due date, I had a non-stress test at the hospital every week to check baby's heartbeat in response to contractions (which I never had, not even Braxton Hicks). In the last week, I went three times to check for signs of labor. Overall, I felt like everything was monitored very closely and I always knew exactly what was going on with baby.

I loved the amount of communication I had with my doctor. Maybe not all doctors are like that, I don't know. I had her number on speed dial for nine months and called her any time I had a question, and she always either answered or called back within an hour, even when I called her on what I didn't realize was a holiday. Oops. In the last few weeks of pregnancy, when baby was measuring a bit small, she would text me occasionally to ask if I'd been feeling him move normally and if I'd had any contractions. Honestly, I feel like I actually got more personal care here than I would have in the US.

Inside the clinic, I could've easily forgotten I wasn't in America. Again, I'm not sure about other doctors' offices, because I've had the same doctor since my first year here. Everything is clean and modern, the waiting room is comfortable, and the receptionist is friendly. I even watched my 4D ultrasound on a large flat-screen TV mounted over the exam table. In the hospital, I again found clean facilities with modern equipment, although the hospital is visibly old and unfortunately lacks air-conditioning in some of the common areas. Otherwise, I found everything more than acceptable.

I had a period of serious doubt in the beginning, not having much experience with the health care system here. I was worried that maybe Romania was somehow "behind" and that I wouldn't be taken care of as well here as I would in the States, but I was wrong. Overall, I was happy with both the cost and quality of my prenatal care.

How does this differ from what you've seen in the States (other countries)? I'd be curious to hear some other experiences!