Congratulations are in order! In the happiness of seeing the two lines on your home pregnancy test, do not forget that with this happiness comes great responsibility. This is not just towards your unborn child, but also towards every single decision that you are going to be taking for the next 9 months, extending all the way into the next 18 years!
So, where do you begin?
Often, your nine months of pregnancy will be spent a great deal with your Ob/Gyn, so taking the right decision there is paramount. While you’d have several checklists on your mind in helping you decide as to who the right doctor would be, let’s understand one aspect that many people miss out on
Thanks to the extent to which information is available through the internet, everybody can now claim that they are the experts. Unlike a decade back when diagnostic reports could only be decoded and explained by doctors, today, search engines prompt people to arrive at conclusions of their own. That’s not a great sign at all. While it’s good to be well-informed, it’s best to trust the doctors, who have degrees to their credit, with the medical expertise.
The keyword here is: trust. So, the first step in a happy pregnancy is finding yourself a doctor you can trust, so that search engines are useful for online shopping and other stuff. When Gunjan conceived her twins, she had already consulted Dr Pratibha at the Birthplace before. Therefore, she had no doubt in her mind that all she needed was Dr Pratibha’s guidance and assurance.
In fact, Dr Pratibha believes that the level of comfort between the doctor and the patient can determine several things. With a patient as lovely as Gunjan who Dr Pratibha says followed her instructions to the last alphabet, a great relationship is already established. To add to that, when the doctor spends all the time needed to explain every minute detail and concern, the trust evolves naturally. That’s one of the factors that made Gunjan and Yash’s experience at the Birthplace memorable and comfortable.
At 33, when Gunjan couldn’t conceive naturally, she had to go through IVF to get pregnant with her twins - Suhaani and Yuvaan. Considering this was a very precious pregnancy that happened after years of prayers and treatments, Dr Pratibha knew that the parents-to-be would be very anxious. Therefore, she exercised all clinical requirements very carefully, as is the norm at the Birthplace, while being warm and considerate.
It was natural that Gunjan and Yash had a lot of questions. Dr Pratibha spent time meticulously clarifying all their doubts ensuring they didn’t have to rely on their phones for reassurance. In fact, father-to-be Yash was the one who was more nervous than his wife Gunjan. He says that Dr Pratibha was the best choice that they had made and also felt that her motherly nature put them at immediate ease.
Usually, having IVF can bring about complications in a pregnancy, especially when they are multiples. In Gunjan’s case however, everything was normal and the babies were very healthy. Even then, as a precautionary measure, Dr Pratibha ensured that there were a few special tests performed apart from the routine tests instead of leaving things to assumption.
Even though the mother-to-be can get overwhelmed by the number of tests, antenatal tests play a big role in rolling in a healthy pregnancy. Dr Pratibha believes that these tests help her determine the bigger picture to ensure that everything is perfectly fine with the mother and the baby. Even for the expecting parents, the results of these antenatal tests can help them remain stress-free, which is one of the most critical factors in a happy pregnancy.
Right from checking if the baby is growing fine to looking for any abnormality that could lead to birth defects, many of these screenings help catch problems early on. Then there are tests to ensure that the mother-to-be has no health conditions that are determined by urine tests, ultrasound tests, blood tests and some vaginal tests like pap smear.
Gunjan had to go through all these tests and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why her pregnancy was smooth without any hassle. In fact, it was her trust with Dr Pratibha that made her comfortable unlike many patients who feel that the doctor is prescribing unnecessary tests.
After a full-term pregnancy that Gunjan says she enjoyed to the fullest, in the next blog, we’ll find out about how the big day was! From all the emotions to the details of the birth, the next blog will talk about the grand arrival of twins Suhaani and Yuvaan and how Dr Pratibha worked through the challenges. Stay tuned!
