Decisions, decisions

Sometimes choice can cause a lot of trouble.

In the UK, things were set out fairly straightforwardly. You get pregnant, you go to the GP and say "hey, I'm pregnant". They make you pee in a cup and then congratulate you, and start the paperwork. In the case of our previous pregnancy I got a choice of two or three local hospitals to go to, and after a brief conferral we decided on one. Sadly that was all we had time for, as the miscarriage occurred the next week.

Here, I have rung my doctor's office and said "I'm pregnant". (I say it's my doctor's office but as we've only been insured since September I've never actually met anyone at the practice.) They told me to ring the women's health center at the local hospital to make an appointment with an OBGYN (obstetrician/gynecologist). I did so, and received an appointment for during my eighth week.

Then I found out that there is also a Birthing Center a few minutes down the road from the hospital. And it's covered by my health insurance, and uses midwives. I would really prefer not to have a hospital birth, so this sounded like a great option. But wait...someone else in town who is also due in November told me "If you are seeing an obgyn at the hospital, you're not allowed to use the birth center." Uh oh. Cue lots of email conversations with the birth center trying to find out my options.

I've settled on keeping the obgyn appointment to see what I think of that option, and going on the "tour" of the birth center the following day, and telling the birth center which option I want to take. (It's apparently slightly frowned on to do this, but they're letting me anyway.) I've provisionally booked an appointment to see the midwives in my eleventh week (the earliest they've got!) so the spots don't fill up before I have a chance to make my decision.

It's slightly offputting to me that I won't be seen by anyone until the 8th and 11th weeks, since a large part of me still expects something to be going wrong. I am a member of an online group of women who are all expecting at about the same time, and most of them have already had their first ultrasound and know that everything is going well.

But of course...if things *weren't* going well...what could I do about it?