Having a baby in Japan

Lump sum birth allowance

2010-11-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

In Japan the National Health Insurance doesn't cover the cost of a pregnancy. However, you will get some coupons from prenatal visits at the same time as the Boshi Techo and you are supposed to receive a "lump sum birth allowance" (出産育児一時金 Chussan Ikuji Ichijikin), given that you registered your pregnancy and applied for this allowance.

Until October 2009, the amount of this allowance was fixed to 350,000JPY or 380,000JPY if the hospital is under the Obstetric Medical Compensation System. It increased for all babies from November 1st 2009 to 390,000 or 420,000JPY as part of government measures trying to help raise the birth rate in Japan. These measures will be in place until the end of March 2011.

From April 2011, the amount of the lump sum birth allowance has yet to be defined. Let's hope that the amount won't decrease to its previous value, the total cost of giving birth in Japan being easily greater (in Tokyo up to twice) the previous amount of the allowance.

Boshi Techo

2010-11-10T00:01:00.000-08:00

I did some more research about the Boshi Techo.
Here is a page on Tokyo With Kids that explains some interesting things about it:
http://www.tokyowithkids.com/fyi/boshi_techo.html

After reading the page on Chiba website (in Japanese), it seems that a pregnancy certificate (妊娠届書) made by a doctor is required to get the Boshi Techo.

Now when i type 妊娠届書 in Google, most websites seem to indicate that in order to get this certificate, the doctor must be able to see the baby's heartbeat (心拍) during the ultrasound.

2nd prenatal visit

2010-11-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

We are still convinced that my wife is at her 6th (now almost 7th) week so we decide to go to another hospital. This one seems to be pretty popular and is recommended by many Japanese women on review websites.
We go there at 8:30 on a holiday, wait for 2 hours before the 10 minutes visit (and i don't even get to enter the examination room). The hospital is full of new-born babies, women waiting for some surgical procedure after something went bad, and pregnant women of course. This is kind of scary to me....
This time the doctor can see a gestational sac on the ultrasound, he explains clearly that despites the date of my wife last menstruation, her ovulation probably happened much later and she is only at her 4th week at that time. She needs to wait and come back to the hospital 2 weeks after.

We leave the hospital a bit disappointed. In Japan when the doctor confirms the pregnancy, you can then go to your ward/city office and ask for the Boshi Techo, some kind of pregnancy notebook that also contains coupons for some of the prenatal visits and make your pregnancy somewhat official. My wife having trouble getting arrangements made at her office for her not to work 14 hours a day like she is doing now, we were hoping that we could get the certificate and be finally taken seriously by her company.
Now we hearing several things from different people about the certificate and the notebook, some doctors seem to require to see the baby's heartbeat (around 6w) to call you officially pregnant, some doctors seem fine with just the urine test performed at their hospital. The second step is the ward office and this time again, it is not clear what is required to receive the notebook, and it probably also depends on the city where you live.
More about it as soon i can...

First appointment to the ob/gyn

2010-11-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

Past the excitement of the pregnancy test (and after the purchase of 2 other pregnancy tests just to make sure you never know...), we schedule her first appointment, which actually is not really an appointment in Japan. You just go there and wait for your turn. From what i read on French an American websites, you usually have to reserve an appointment one to two weeks before. In Japan, you just go and hope not too many people had the same idea as you.
I help her choosing a clinic close from home where she can go and have her first prenatal visit. The place is apparently run by a Chinese doctor who graduated from Keio university in Japan. My wife seems to be reassured by that and plans to go there the next morning.
This time i have to go to work and i can't go with her. I tell her to call me when the visit is done.
She calls me, tells me the doctor asked a few questions, she did some urine test, had some ultrasound but the doctor couldn't see anything and told it was just too early. Everything done in about 10 or 15 minutes.
She tells me the doctor is not talkative and she basically doesn't really what's happening...

If your are like us, after you go the first positive pregnancy test, you start reading about all sorts of things on internet. You read about pregnancy calendars, you enter the first day of your last menstruation and they tell you when your due date is and you read that you (i mean you or your wife) is at the 6th week of her pregnancy. You can also pictures of what the ultrasound will look like and everything. So basically when you go to the doctor will all that in your head, and the doctor tells you he doesn't see anything, you SHOULD ask why.
I wasn't with my wife, i can imagine she wasn't that comfortable after the pelvic exam and the ultrasound, the doctor not being so talkative, she basically came home without knowing much. And then she (we) started to wonder what all this actually meant.

So first advice, before your first appointment with the doctor, prepare a list of questions, because you probably already know too much and at the same time not enough to understand the results of the first ultrasound. If you are not sure about something, ask about it right away. Internet is full of websites, blogs, forums that can answer about any question that exists about your pregnancy but at the same time for a given question you will find as many different answers as there are websites. You will just end up worrying about things that are not important.

One more week: 2nd test

2010-11-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

One more week, still no periods. I have to run at night to the pharmacy to get new pregnancy tests. (I thought we still had one but it seems like she used another one without telling me...). She comes back from work (really late) and try again.
I'm watching some stupid 笑い TV, she cames back from the bathroom with her big eyes and tells me : "i'm pregnant !".
My science background tells me to take step back, read the manual, and check that the result is actually positive. On the box, the 2nd line is quite dark, ours is kinda faint, after half an hour googling "is a faint line on a pregnancy test actually positive ?" and after checking the percentage of accuracy and the statistics of false positive with pregnancy tests (oh god i'm such a geek), i finally admit that we are going to have a baby !

First test

2010-11-08T21:47:00.000-08:00

First delay (about a week) in her periods and first test: negative.
She is working so late at night that we put that on the count of overwork and stress. Little hope from her side but i myself don't realize anything of course.