After peeing on the stick and informing the father of your child, what's next? My first port of call was the Gibraltar Health Centre - Natural right? Wrong. In my case my partner and I went to the doctor, with which the doctor's response (both times, as we were so confused we went back a second time) 'If the test is positive why are you here?' As we began to learn, false negatives happen but false positives do not. We were not told to pee on a stick there, or take a blood test, or properly informed of what the next step was. After a couple of mix ups from doctors who weren't sure on the information to provide and happening to stumble across a midwife outside of maternity we were informed of the correct procedure.
After taking the test, the first step is in fact registering your pregnancy.
A registration form can be found online via the government website, once filled in, head over to the health centre admin department (Where you renew your health cards).
You can find the form here:
- https://gha.gi/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Pregnancy-Registration-Form.pdf
Things to be aware of
1. Opening times of the Health Centre Registration Dept. (9am-12pm) - Convenient right?
2. On the form it states you will first be met at 10 weeks in the Hospital - Wrong. You will be called for a 30 minute appointment in the Health Centre first at 8 weeks, followed by a 10 week appointment of 30 minutes in the Hospital.
After this, the process should be fairly straight forward.
It is odd not to meet anyone with knowledge until 8 weeks, or not to even be asked to pee on a stick by a professional but enjoy the "wtf am I doing moments" from here on out as there will be plenty!