If you're new here, you may be interested to know that you can receive all of our latest articles directly to your inbox. Click Here for more info. We promise to keep your email safe and will use it for only this purpose
Since announcing we were pregnant a number of weeks ago the ‘bump’ has been growing large and strong.
We had our 19 and a bit week scan today and I’m chuffed to bits to say that baby is doing well, growing in all of the right places and was very well behaved as ‘it’ had its picture taken.
I know that some of you may be interested to know what the whole pregnancy set up is like in Australia and I have to say, so far we are very very impressed.
This is actually the third scan we have had since finding out we were pregnant and this one lasted the longest.
We went to the hospital at Joondalup which looks more like a hotel in places with its clean lines and trendy coffee bars.
Todays scan took over half an hour. In the room we had two large TV screens (one for me and the lady doing the canning) and one for the missus.
Over sixty photographs were taken and the lady spent lots of time talking us through what she was looking at and what she was checking for (although we’ve decided that we don’t want to know the sex so she didn’t go in to to much detail in ‘that area 
).
At the end of the scan all of the photo’s were copied onto a CD for us to take home.
Although we now have private medical insurance, I’ve mentioned before that because of the qualifying period we are using the Aussie equivalent of the NHS.
A colleague of mine at work has recently had a baby here with his missus. He’s an ex pom like me and they had their baby at the same hospital that we are.
Similarly to us, he also missed out on the insurance for their pregnancy due to the waiting periods so had to take advantage of what the state had to offer.
We’ve since found out that the same hospital in Joondalup is used for both Private and non private patients and the main difference that I have seen so far is in the waiting rooms in the private section they have Sofa’s instead of chairs
Admittedly, for some parts of our treatment we will still have to pay fees, of which we get 40 – 60% back through Medicare (the Aussie NHS) but compared to our experiences when junior was born, back in the UK. The Aussie system justs feels a lot less rushed and professional.
I remember back in the UK, we had one scan at 20 weeks. The first thing that the nurse said to us when the missus laid back on the bed and got a dollop of gel applied to her tummy was that she wouldn’t be able to talk to much as she did the scan because she had about 30 scans to do that day and she was already behinds schedule.
There was only one small TV screen used by the nurse which I got a half decent view of but the missus could hardly see due to the fact that she was lying down and had to stay still.
The lady we had today was great, it was like she had all of the time in the world for us and it was a wonderful experience for all of us to say hi to junior number two as it starts to resemble a real little person for the first time
As time goes on I’m sure things will start to get more interesting and we’ll have a better idea what to expect but so far, a big thumbs up all around!
Four months to go! How exciting 
Article Popularity: 3%
Good to hear the little-un is doing well! Best of luck with it all.
We’re expats too, and we had nothing but good experiences of the Aussie health service during my wife’s pregnancy. From the ultrasound through to the birth, the service has been second-to-none. Our son Isaac was born in Manly Hospital in Feb, and the midwives there were superb. The post-natal care and parents’ group have been excellent too.
In Australia you get a one-off maternity payment of $4133 when the baby is born, which certainly helps towards the cost of the nappies!
There doesn’t seem to be much difference between public and private health in Aus. My friend recently had a back operation in a private hospital and he said that not only was the nursing rubbish, but he still had to pay for about 60% of the operation cost! He said the only good thing was that you got decent food and wine in the hospital. lol
Congrabulations!!! A lil’ mark Jr will be running amuck in Oz in no time… Lookout joeys and lambs…
My sister had a couple of rugrats a while back, and the government actually gave her money for having them!!! Well actually the money was to help pay the medical bills and stuff, but the money can get up to round $1000 in some states.
Being a male, I can’t comment on the whole “having a baby” thing, but from what I’ve heard, Oz is one of the better places to have a baby. Even on medicare, you still get fairly good service.