What to Expect When You’re Expecting in Winnipeg

Things on my to-do-once-I-move-to-Manitoba list:

Get married? Check.

Buy a house? Done.

Have a baby…  any time now!

Yep, my husband and I will welcome our first child very shortly, and since pregnancy is such a major life event, the last nine months have given me a real education in expectation. Reflecting on it all  has inspired me to share a bit about what I’ve discovered – I hope it will be of some use to fellow expectant parents in the city.  I’m certainly no pro, but I have managed to figure some things out!

Doctors, Obstetricians & Midwives

One of the most frustrating things about moving to a new city is getting yourself set up with new healthcare providers.  When I found out I was pregnant, I hadn’t yet found a family doctor, and that was pretty stressful (as if there aren’t other things on your mind when you’re in your first trimester, like not throwing up!). The Family Doctor Connection did not prove to be particularly helpful – I wound up just searching the internet for Winnipeg medical clinics accepting new patients and eventually did get into one.

Eventually I was referred to an obstetrician who think is great, but when I found out that pregnant women in Manitoba can choose to work with a doctor or a midwife, I was disappointed that I hadn’t pursued the latter option. Fortunately, we’ve been able to somewhat bridge the differing styles of prenatal care by hiring a doula who has been meeting with us regularly over the last few months, and who will be with us when our baby is born.

Midwives are funded through the province of Manitoba and can generally attend hospital and home births. Be forewarned, though: there’s a shortage of midwives in the province. According to this Free Press item, the province funds about 40, but needs more like 200.  Apparently, the College of Midwives is turning away more than half the people who want a midwifery birth. You can see a list of all midwife practices here. (Midwives support low-risk home and hospital births – pretty cool.)

Hospital Births

In Winnipeg, only St. Boniface Hospital and the Health Sciences Centre (HSC) have maternity wards.  I’ll be delivering at St. B,  which is made up of private, LDRP (labour/delivery/recovery/postpartum) rooms, and semi-private rooms. You can take a monthly “virtual tour” of the St. B maternity ward every 2nd Thursday of the month. The first half hour/45 minutes is a powerpoint presentation by an anaesthesiologist, addressing drug options for labour. The second half is a slide show and presentation by a labour & delivery nurse, and for me, this part of the presentation was much more valuable. The nurse shared when to come to the hospital, and what to bring, and answered the question that everyone wants to know: how do I get a private LDRP room? (The answer is sort of complicated, but I was relieved to know that even if you don’t get an LDRP room, you still have your own room for labour, delivery, and recovery. It’s only after the delivery that you’ll be sharing a room.)

Also of great interest to me is the construction of a free-standing birthing centre (“Women’s Health Clinic”) that is scheduled to begin by Spring of 2011. It’s expected to handle 500 births per year, and “will include a primary-care clinic and four birthing rooms, and facilities for education and counselling.” (CBC News item)

Ultrasounds

Sorry ladies, this ain’t the United States, where if you believe what you see on A Baby Story, you’d get a whole bunch of chances to see your little one in utero. In Manitoba, I’ve been told, and it was my experience, that unless you’re high risk, you’ll probably get one ultrasound at around 20 weeks. And it’s for medical purposes, not to determine the sex of the baby. (Don’t bother to ask if it’s a boy or a girl, because apparently they won’t tell you! At St. B, anyway. I’m not sure about HSC.) At St. Boniface, you can order a DVD of your ultrasound for $50 (allow  weeks for processing). This was a hard reality for me to learn, since all I wanted was one snapshot to show family and friends, and tuck into a baby book. In the end we opted save some money (am I becoming a frugal Winnipegger, or what??) and to forego the ultrasound DVD. If you’re willing to pay, BabyMoon and UC Baby are private ultrasound clinics that offer a variety of photo/DVD/etc. packages.

Doulas (a.k.a. labour coaches)

As I mentioned earlier, we found a wonderful doula through Birth Roots Doula Collective who has been meeting with us over the last few months and will be with us when I go into labour. She has been an excellent source of information, reassurance, and support and we feel very lucky to be working with her. While doulas (personal labour coaches) aren’t paid for by the province, most have a sliding scale fee policy… we are paying the full Birth Roots price at $575+tax. Other organizations such as MACFE (a non-profit) charge less.

Incidentally, word on the street is that doula services in Manitoba are way underpriced. A friend of mine in Calgary who is also expecting looked into getting a doula, and the least expensive service they found cost $900. I have heard that doulas in Toronto often charge $1000. We’ve had such a positive experience with our doula so far that I’m sure we would happily pay a higher rate, if it were required.

Prenatal classes, activities & networking

One of the downsides of moving away from your old friends is that once “baby fever” hits your gang, you may find, as I did, that you want to be around other expectant mothers but don’t know any! Fortunately I’ve been able to meet some other pregnant women through prenatal classes and prenatal yoga, both of which are held at Birth Roots. I’ve especially enjoyed the 8-week yoga class, as we generally had group discussions both before and after the class. Moksha Yoga also offers prenatal yoga, and the Winnipeg Leisure Guide lists several pre-and postnatal (and pre-/postnatal friendly) classes including yoga, aquafit, exercise, etc.

Two online forums have been somewhat useful, too: Baby Center’s Parents in Manitoba board and What to Expect’s Canadian Parents board.

Maternity & baby clothing and gear

I’ve had a lot of luck finding gently worn maternity clothes at Mom’s and Children’s Paradise, got my winter coat at Motherhood Maternity, and almost never left Thyme without something cute! As for baby gear, a colleague told me early on to watch the Zellers flyers because they routinely have big sales in the baby department… and it’s true, they do! E-Children is a smaller chain whose Winnipeg store in located in the Exchange, and they have really lovely cribs, bassinets, bedding, furniture, etc. there. We purchased cloth diapers from a local mother/daughter team who runs Canada’s Diaper Ladies. I’ve also heard good things about AMP Diapers.

And again, I wouldn’t be a thrifty Winnipegger if I didn’t scope out a bunch of garage sales a couple weekends back, and score a bunch of barely-used clothes, a Snugli, and a diaper bag for a fraction of what they would have cost new. (On a related note, this year I discovered that there are somewhat regular “community garage sales” where entire neighbourhoods plan their sales on the same weekend… I visited the Whyte Ridge sales on May 8, and the Linden Woods sale is right around the corner on June 5.)

I’ve also made excellent use of Winnipeg Public Library‘s extensive collection of pregnancy and baby name books. I’m looking forward to taking the little one to some WPL programming eventually, too!

Anyway, that’s about it (I know, this was a novel) from me on this topic. I’d love to hear about others’ experiences, tips, and comments about preparing for a baby in Manitoba… it can be an overwhelming and anxious time of life, so the more we can share with each other, the better