Change of Plans

Preparations have been going well for delivering in London.  I was able to find a five-bedroom flat within walking distance of the hospital, a park, a library, and four different Tube stops.  The OB I've seen on two previous pregnancies has been setting things up for a delivery and is expecting me in September.  I've spent a lot of time thinking about what to do with the children (in a small flat you have to get out every single day rain or shine), and even found a stable for them to ride at.

I realized a few weeks ago that the doctor here at post was leaving for R&R in early July and would be back until almost August.  So when I saw her for my 23-week OB appointment, I asked if she could write the medevac cable before she left.  

In order to get any medevac funded with the State department, a cable has to be sent to DC which asks for approval and money to pay for the whole thing.  It's always good to start early because there are inevitable questions that come up and bureaucratic processes that take longer than they should.  Plane tickets can't be bought without a cable, and travel advances (which are very important when you're spending over $10,000 a month on housing) can't be issued without them either.  So having the cable written in early July versus early August gives us a two-month instead of one-month time frame to get things arranged.  It's always good to have more time than less time.

When we were discussing the cable, the doctor mentioned that I needed to get a formal acceptance for the medevac to London.  She didn't figure that it would be an issue as she had already asked them several months ago and they responded with, 'sure as long as it's an uncomplicated pregnancy.'  

A few days after my appointment, the doctor let me know that the med unit in London wanted to have a conference call to discuss my childcare arrangements while in London.  Brandon, always the pessimist, immediately pronounced that they were looking for a reason to refuse the medevac.  Being an optimist, I told him all the reasons why that was ridiculous.

We had the phone call early last week.  They were very concerned about what would happen to the children if I had to go to the hospital for an emergency.  I let them know that Kathleen will be thirteen and is quite capable of babysitting her siblings for several hours.  We also have friends in London who are willing to come and help out as well as Brandon's brother and sister-in-law who live just south of London.  Her parents also offered to help out if we needed it, and I also knew that sisters from the Relief Society in the ward we would be attending would be willing to help in an emergency.  Brandon has buckets of unused leave and he would be able to to hop on one of the daily flights to London and be there within a day of any emergency.  It was, in my opinion, a very thorough plan.

The RMO wanted to know about having a power of attorney in place so that if I was in the hospital unexpectedly and in a coma and therefore unreachable and one of the children also went to the hospital unexpectedly, there would be legal authorization for medical care.  I assured him that I would be able to set it up with our friends with the embassy.  

The phone call ended very amicably and the doctor and I were happy to get that particular box checked off.

The next day she called right as I was about to go down for my nap.  As soon as I heard her tone I knew that something was up.  "I'm so sorry," she began, "but London has decided to decline your medevac.  They don't feel that you have adequate childcare in case of an emergency.  The did say, however, that if you can have another adult with you for the entire length of your medevac, they would accept you.  If you want to hire a nanny, the CLO has a list of au pairs that you could hire."

I hung up in disbelief.  I have talked with several women who have taken a child or children with them for an OB medevac to London, and I know that they were not required to have another adult with them for three months.  All of these children were also small and so definitely not able to care for themselves in an emergency, unlike my children who are quite capable.  I also doubt that any of them had a multi-layered, multi-person back-up plan like mine.  Some of them weren't even able to have their husband stay for the entire postpartum period, which Brandon was going to do.

So I was left with the real reason for the refusal, the reason that Brandon saw from the very beginning: the med unit in London simply didn't want me to come because I had a big family.  They were able to dress that reason up with plausible enough back-up - they even got the regional security officer to put his stamp of approval on the denial so that 'safety' could be cited - that there was nothing I could do about it.  But nobody was really under any illusion that they actually cared about the safety of my children.  We all knew it was because I was a potential headache that they didn't want to deal with and so they made it go away with flimsy excuses.

While discussing this reversal of plans, Brandon pointed out that, with their reasoning about childcare, I wasn't fit to watch my own children every time Brandon left the country.  They also didn't care a bit about the 'safety' of my children at whatever US destination I chose to deliver at, as that question was never even brought up.  

We were both fairly frustrated and disappointed.  The children were more so.

But when someone else pays for your life, you are constrained by their limits.  So we started making alternative plans.

Our first impulse was to go to Hawaii.  Because, Hawaii.  After all, if you have to go somewhere to deliver, why not Hawaii?  I've never been before and the allure of spending three months of fall in the tropics sounded pretty good to me.  I also thought about Florida and Puerto Rico.  I like the beach and three months of the beach would be awesome.

But of course reason and logistical considerations eventually kicked in and going back to Raleigh (again) made the best sense.  I have family, friends, a ward, and an OB practice there.  I've delivered two babies there before, and the children will get to see their friends and family (who we weren't going to see at all this year).  It, sadly for my sense of tropical adventure, made too much sense.

We were able to find a place to stay with enough room who was willing to take nine (nine!) people in a neighborhood less than four miles from my parents' house.  We were able to shift around some car buying plans so that we will have a car for three months.  I looked up plane flights.  I found that my old stable is still around.  My dad assured my that his old practice would be happy to accept me for the delivery.  Everything neatly fell into place.

Whenever I think about London, I'm still sad for our adventure that was going to be.  It was going to be so much fun, and probably the only chance we'll have to live in Europe.  I had been making plans for almost two years, so that's a lot of anticipation that has been disappointed. 

But such is life.  I have found myself to be surprisingly resigned to the whole situation, which has been helped by working hard to not think about what might have been.  The children were fairly easily bought off with the promise of a trampoline in the backyard and a family of children from church down the street.  Living three months of a suburban American lifestyle is its own adventure when you've lived over half your life in post-Soviet countries.  

But still, London would have been fun.