Okinawa Hai!

CONTRIBUTED BY STACY ROSE Adventist Med Center I recently gave birth at Adventist Medical Center and wanted to share my experience for anyone considering this option. At my first appointment, they gave me a plastic card (like a credit card) with my name on it, and at each subsequent appointment I had to give the [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY HEATHER GELORMINE Last week we opened a new post about pregnancy and childbirth at Lester Naval Hospital for discussion, in order to update the information for all our mommies (and daddies)-to-be.  This week we’re heading off-base, returning to a discussion about In Vitro Fertilization for those couples who may be requiring assistance in [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY HEATHER GELORMINE We have two types of posts on Okinawa Hai that receive a huge amount of comments from our readers, both in the form of questions and answers.  One of these is about housing, for pretty obvious reasons: we all have to sleep somewhere at night.  The other is about being pregnant [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY JOELLE YAMADA First, I grabbed my name tag and folder and said hi to everyone.  Next, I got on the scales – always my favorite part (sarcasm!) – charted my weight gain on the cool graph that allowed me to see my progress over time.  Then I took my own blood pressure, charting [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY JOELLE YAMADA She loves having babies. No, really. She loves being pregnant. She loves laboring and birthing her children into this world. So much that she’s done it three times. Each time she chose to experience things naturally, without drugs, and with little to no intervention or assistance. As I listen to her [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LAN If you live here on Okinawa, you’re bound to see a few expanded bellies that are probably not from good eats.  Call it living the island life, post-deployment marital activities, or just ol’ wanting to expand the happy family, there always seems to be an abundant number of expecting moms here on [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY KIMBERLY MITCHELL Okinawa Hai reader, Lisa, has a question. Can anyone help her out? I have been in Okinawa for about 5 months now. My husband and I are looking to expand our family and had to do IVF (in-vitro fertilization) to conceive our son. Does anyone have any info on that option [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LAN When I was about 36 weeks pregnant w/my chunky monkey , my nesting instinct kicked in and I wanted desperately to set up house again in a new, larger place to accommodate our newly expanded family of five.  But eventually, practical sense and friends telling me that I was bonkers settled in [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY LAN Massages are such a wonderful thing, esp. when you’re expecting a little one and your bones and muscles are being stretched this way and that.  As my belly is expanding beyond my comfort zone, I am personally interested in this question submitted by Kristina:  “Hi!  I’m wondering if you can post a [...]

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CONTRIBUTED BY MEREDITH NOVARIO We recently received this e-mail. Let’s help a lady out, shall we? A couple of months ago my husband and I learned that we would be  moving to Okinawa in the fall.  There have been ups and downs through the process of finding out where to live, how to get there, [...]

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