5 Reasons I went Private on my Second

When I was pregnant with Matthew (my first baby) it took me quite some time to decide whether I want to go public or private. The costs of going private is not cheap in Ireland and I am sure it is the same in every other country. In saying that Ireland’s health system is a bit of a disaster compared to the one I am used to in Germany. But I will moan about that another time.
In the end I decided to go public with my first. Oh how I wish I would have chosen private back then. Matthew is a summer baby which made the pregnancy very hard. Elephant feet, puffy face, you name it. Waiting for hours to be seen in the hospital was no fun and games at all. I also found a bit strange that when going public, the first scan you receive, is not until 20 week ish.

With my second pregnancy then, where Chloe came into the world, hubby and I discussed this and came to the conclusion that we are going private this time. I have to admit, it was more hubby that wanted this, because it was the cost that put me off a bit but we came to an agreement in the end.

Now that I have seen both ways, public and private, it is nice to have a comparison and say which one is the best and is it worth it spending that money going private. We have a private health insurance so got a good bit back when we did go private on my second baby. There are mainly 5 reasons looking back now why I think private is better.

1. No more waiting for hours

I remember really well when I had an appointment in the hospital that I could sometimes wait up to 2-3 hours to be seen by somebody. I know you are entitled to your ante natal visit when working but sometimes, depending what time of the day my appointment was, I ended up not going to work any more.
Visiting your consultant in their private clinic was so much handier. You sit with a handful of other women in a room and usually get seen within an hour if not even within 30 mins. Now I did have an occasion where the consultant had to go to the hospital to deliver a baby, but that only happened once.

2. Private Room

Obviously this is something that is not 100% guaranteed depending on how busy the hospital is. With Matthew I was in a semi-private room which had 6 people in it including myself. The downside of this is that mums can be up at all different hours.
With the private room I had, I could close the door any time I want and get up at night whenever I wanted to, without upsetting any one when turning on the light. We had so much more privacy.

3. You always get seen by the same person

With public hospitals you haven’t really got a proper relationship with anyone. You are being seen by different midwives every time and by different consultants, too. It’s always a different person.
Being in the private clinic, it is only the consultant that works there and they always rotate between 2 nurses which means you know them well after a while.

4. Multiple Scans

On my first the first scan I got was at 22 weeks which I personally found a bit late. I think for every pregnancy when going public there should be at least one at 12 weeks as well.
On my second I got so many scans I actually lost track how many I got in the end. But my first ever scan was at 8 weeks. I had another one then 4-5 weeks later on and my last one was around the 30th mark.

5. Less visits

This could be down to the fact that it was my second baby but I found with the first one I kept rotating visits between GP and hospital every few weeks. It was never ending. My ante natal card was packed.
With the private clinic they didn’t feel the need that I don’t have to be seen by the GP that many times. I think it might have been only like 3 times I went there. The majority of times I was seen by consultant.

What route did you take?