hi everyone i'm an ob gyn and i'm a pediatrician and we want to have a baby we want to have a baby
so we are going to be documenting our journey from beginning to end
with week by week updates with great medical information telling you what you need to know
about your pregnancy and your developing baby and also talking about what it's like in real life
so this week we're going to be talking about pulling the goalie
and since you've never met us before i'm kurt i'm sarah and we are the doctors bjorkman
welcome back everyone as i said in the intro we are both doctors and deal with either babies
or pregnancy every day so we have been giving patients advice about this kind of thing for years
and we decided it is finally time to figure out if we know what we're talking about
because apparently being a medical expert doesn't make you a parenting expert right you know and so
we're gonna give it a shot but for the past couple years has been something literally
in the way we've been trying to not have a baby yes as an ob gyn i love birth control
and as half of pregnancies in the us are unplanned i'm a planner and so i love
that birth control gives you the power to start your family when you're ready for it
that being said let's talk about too much information already in the first
episode i was a pill user for many years i loved what it did for my complexion but after medical
school and starting residency i realized i need more of a set it and forget it kind of method
and i switched to an iud which i loved not having to think about taking a pill every day
and we can talk about all these different options for contraception uh in a future episode because
right what we're trying to do now is kind of the opposite of birth control we are trying to have
a baby yeah and so there was a couple things that we sat down and really intentionally thought about
in deciding gosh are we ready to bring a human into the world we heard so many times
throughout our training from different mentors that there's never a great time to have a baby
but eventually just kind of have to do it and jump in head first so we thought about five things
in terms of are we ready to have a baby and the very first one was if you're thinking about having
a baby you should be taking a prenatal vitamin so i went out and got a prenatal vitamin and started
taking it all women of childbearing age should really be taking a prenatal vitamin that's not
really real life so once you start thinking about having a baby or trying to have a baby
you should be taking a prenatal vitamin with at least 400 micrograms of folic acid as that helps
prevent some pretty bad birth effects yeah so get a vitamin and start taking it every day yes number
one the second thing we thought about was could we afford to have a baby um you know i think the
answer is probably never yes but we wanted to make sure that we could at least afford to pay rent buy
diapers and do whatever child care was going to be necessary given that we're both planning to work
outside the home still after baby comes yes number three was is the timing really terrible or just
bad everyone says there's never a good time to have a baby you just have to do it when it feels
right for you and we never really got to that point that feels right until now that being said
we have had co-workers have babies at all stages of the game and they are absolutely super heroes
i just wasn't didn't think i was gonna be capable of postpartum rounding at 4 30 a.m and also being
a good mom there are many who are hats off enough it is amazing yeah so um but we decided that we
wanted to wait a little bit which brings us to now when we think is going to be the right time
whatever time is right for you only you can decide that yep the fourth thing we thought
about was what about child care specifically um this doesn't have to be an exact day-to-day plan
we may already kind of have a day-to-day plan of what we might do in the future um but really just
can someone take days off do you need daycare can you afford a nanny explore the options that are
around in your area yeah our parents going to be able to come and help you and what kind of things
is it going to look for to physically just make sure that our new baby's going to be well cared
for yep the fifth thing we thought about was our health are we mentally and physically ready for a
pregnancy this is a good thing to think about if you're someone who has pre-existing conditions or
other things you can optimize before pregnancy for us you cut out the energy drinks i quit eating ice
cream every single day we both try to get back in the gym a little bit more um and make sure
that we were in as good of health as we could be those are things we tried for yeah so anyway at
the end of this we kind of made our pros and cons list um our contest was maybe a little bit longer
uh but the pros list has that one big pro of having a baby and getting to bring a new human
into the world which we think and hope is going to be pretty amazing so we decided it was time to
go for it and uh pull the goalie yes um i would absolutely 100 recommend that you see your ob
gyn to have your iud removed or your midwife or your provider or whoever go into the office it's
a quick outpatient visit iud they take it out it's no big deal i'm a little bit impulsive i
was in the shower felt my strength so they were pulled the iud out here we are i'm practicing
for parenthood already when i say do as i say not as i do go see your ob gyn to get your idea
so this brings us to the end of our first episode um if you couldn't tell we're pretty new with this
um so please subscribe follow along we'll be here for at least 40 weeks um give us lots of feedback
we'd love to hear your thoughts questions and we will see you every week bye guys see ya
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've said in this video
is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not medical advice
any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider