Balagan Gadol

Turns out this is the key to everything

A Big Mess.  Balagan Gadol.  That is how I will describe my first week of pregnancy in Israel.   You guys, I couldn't make this up if I tried.

A quick summary of week 1:  I had my first OB appointment on Friday (August 10th) and since then, I have had 3 ultrasounds.  And the standard blood/urine tests (which took 3 hours, story below).  And I've seen my doctor twice and another doctor once.  I am sure you are thinking "Holy cow Becca, something must be wrong!" but no, no, no... nothing is wrong. This is just pregnancy in Israel.  Looking forward, I have two more doctor visits scheduled in the next 6 weeks because we go every 3 weeks.  And 4 more ultrasounds.  I'm not kidding.   Not only do I get two do 2 "standard" ultrasounds in the next 6 weeks, but also a maternal cardiologist scan, and than another anatomy scan. I told my OB today that I have already had more ultrasounds in one week than I did the entire time I was pregnant with Ledoux.  He gave me a smile and a laugh- perhaps he thought I was exaggerating? Maybe it was the language barrier? I'll never know. 
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If you have 5 minutes and want to be amused at my expense, I'd like to share the mess that we had to go through today to get a standard blood draw. A blood draw that in the end took 3 minutes, but took us 3 hours to do.  How is that possible you ask? Allow me to share the balagan that we went through today.

Lee and I dropped Ledoux off at school and we headed to the blood lab. I had to go get the typical blood tests done that are required in weeks 16-20- no biggie.  I knew where to go, had the exact blood lab form with me so I could hand it to the lab, and was certain this would be a no fuss visit.

Ya Effing Right. I forgot I am in Israel.

When we got to the lab, I handed the lady (who speaks zero english) the form.  She looked at it, and then went to the back.  I assumed it was all good so I took a seat to wait for her to call me in. A few minutes later we hear a couple voices speaking in Hebrew- I don't know exactly what they said, but they were clearly confused and arguing about something.  The lady came back up and brought with her someone who spoke a teeny bit of english. They didn't understand what one of the tests was that the doctor wanted done (for all you preggo people, its the standard Alpha Beta Protein test... nothing crazy!) We don't understand Hebrew, they don't understand english, so we ended up calling my OB to talk to them directly.  Luckily, he actually answers his cell phone on the weekends (Friday is a weekend day in Israel).  All seemed beseder, everyone at the lab now understood, so we hung up with the doctor.

Blood test time! Woop! Lets get this done so I can get breakfast. Not so fast...

 The lab lady said "Do you have your ultrasound?" Uhhh... what? I don't carry my ultrasound picture around with me?!  She continued to try and tell me that in order to have my blood drawn I needed to give them my ultrasound picture.  We argued back and forth (well actually Lee argued and I just stood there trying not to loose my shit) trying to understand why on earth they needed that. Lee even had pictures on his phone that he could email them, but it still wasn't good enough.  They wanted a legit, original picture. We continued to ask WHY, and they called "management." Great, we are going to get thrown out.  "Management" came up, and said in Israel it is required that we provide ultrasounds in order to do these tests. And then he walked away.  Thanks for clarifying, dude!  I mean, come on guys... clearly I am not there to get a pregnancy blood screen done for the hell of it.  Trust me, if I had my choice, I would be at the Shuk drinking beer right now and working on my buzz but I am most certainly pregnant- hence the reason I am sitting there with them trying to get my PREGNANCY LABS DONE!  Not sure why I need to provide an ultrasound picture to prove this.   I can't imagine people go do pregnancy labs for the fun of it.

Since we didn't have this golden picture, she agreed to do two of the blood tests but the third would have to wait until I brought her the scan. I didn't want my visit to be a total waste of time, so I agreed to do what we could. Then she asked me to pay 780 NIS. Roughly $215 US dollars.  (We have insurance and everything gets billed through the International department of the medical center we go through- and this lab is a part of that department)  Only then, when I questioned her on why she was trying to charge me, did she realize I was a patient though the International department.  I thought my english and having Lee with me would be a dead giveaway I am not from here, but perhaps we are becoming more Israeli than I thought.  She gave me all my paperwork back, and said I needed to go upstairs to and speak to the medical records department, where I would get yet another form, and then they could proceed to draw my blood (for 2 of the 3 tests) without paying out of pocket.

Deep breathe. Upstairs I went. And I waited.

Another form! And also, they keep our medical records in those high tech plastic sleeves.  Totally efficient! (Sarcasm) 

Sure enough, the nice lady in the medical records department took the lab paperwork from my doctor, and printed out another piece of paper that pretty much indicated exactly what my doctor wrote: do x/y/z tests.  Same stuff, different paper.   In the meantime, Lee had texted my OB to see if he could fax over one of the copies from our ultrasound we did with him a week ago.  He requested that we come in to his office when we finished in the medical records department, and he would just do a new ultrasound.  (Again, thank god my OB actually responds to calls AND texts on a weekend.  And he was in his office!)

He is as thrilled as me to spend all morning doing this.  So. Happy.

Got in the car, headed to Dr. T's office. Got yet another ultrasound done.  Dr. T said them making me bring the ultrasound picture is "Bullshit".  His words, not mine.  But we all agreed.  Its bullshit. Nonetheless, armed with fresh ultrasound pictures AND the same (but different) form for the lab, I was finally going to get my blood drawn!

....Or not.

We got back to the lab, gave the lab lady all of the required information, and were ready to be poked! But, my friends, even with everything we needed, it still wasn't right.  The form I had was in english, and now she wanted the EXACT SAME FORM filled out, only in Hebrew.  She indicated with lots of pointing that I needed to once again go back upstairs and have the medical records department fill it out for me.

Another deep breathe.  So back upstairs and across the courtyard I went.

I payed the sweet old lady yet another visit and explained to her that her form she gave me wasn't enough and they wanted the same form filled out in Hebrew.  She said something (in Hebrew or Russian, not sure) and then said they have never had to do a Hebrew form.  (Reminder: this is the International medical department so its really, really uncommon to have language barrier issues.) When they didn't answer her phone calls,  she grabbed all my paperwork and walked back down to the lab with me. After what I am certain was some scolding on her side, the lab FINALLY agreed to draw my blood.

Oh hey! Its me! Just trying to get my blood drawn and keeps smile on my face. But what I really want to do is kill someone and drink wine. 

3 hours later, we got our super simple blood test.  It took 3 minutes from start to finish. If I have this much content just for a blood draw, imagine what its like to actually have a baby here.  YAY ME! I get to find out!  So. Excited. (that is sarcasm again, FYI)