Havin baby in Oz??? Help/Advice/personal experiences needed

Hi so am almost 12wks pregnant now was planned but unexpected as didnt think it would happen for personal reasons, anyway has now put spanner in works for emegrating, hubby been offered jobs/relocation packages etc we were aiming for the move by september but obviously now i am expecting am anxious to stay i uk with friends and family support to have baby then make the move early next year after its born! however am panicking incase hubbys possible new employers arnt willing to wait that long for him, can anyone advice on what its like to have baby in oz been told so many different things dont know what to think! been told i wont qualify for medicare as not permanent resident and therefore will pay a fotune in costs for apps and to have it etc! is this true? also worried about the extreme heat and being alone with no support and a new born baby and toddler, anyone been here and can comment??? please help

You will get reciprocal medicare as you are from the UK. All treatment in a Public Hospital will be free, but you will prob have to pay for some scans and doctors appointments which you will be able to claim back a portion of the money.

As for the extream heat where are you moving to??

Is that a certain type of insurance with medicare? thanks for reply, we heading to QLD!

Medicare is a bit like there equivalent to the NHS. Once you arrive in Australia - you go to one of there centers with your passport (I also took NHS card to show that was registered in UK). You will get a Medicare card - if you have to pay for any treatment you will need to take the recipts and medicare card to a medicare center and they will refund a portion of what you have paid. But in hospitals you dont need to pay upfront.

You will require medical insurance for your 457 visa - so not sure if whatever medical insurace you get will cover you for pregnancy and its pre-existing???

Ok thanks we not got medical insurance here, not sure what visa we getting yet as company sponsoring us and sorting it all so none the wiser as to what we need at the moment so cheers for the heads up!! so we wil qualify for some sort of medicare then? is that what u mean? sorry 4 all the questions

Ok thanks we not got medical insurance here, not sure what visa we getting yet as company sponsoring us and sorting it all so none the wiser as to what we need at the moment so cheers for the heads up!! so we wil qualify for some sort of medicare then? is that what u mean? sorry 4 all the questions

Yes you will qualify for reciprocal medicare if on 457 which is TR visa, its the most common visa for sponsoring overseas employees.

Most insurance policies will have a 12 month exclusion for obstetrics, so you won't be covered privately. Having a baby in either country is a hideously unpleasent experience, you know what those first few months are like, coupled with another small child. get your OH to ask whether they'll wait a few months - the more support you can get from family the better.

I had my baby here on a 457 visa. went to a public hospital, had all my ante natal care there, was brilliant. no one asked me a thing- i almost kept offering to pay but big hospitals are fully aware of the reciprocal agreement. i did have to pay for my own blood tests and glucose tests which all aussies do too- cost around $500 in total. not much over the 9 month period. had a c section in the end and a private room. only complaint was i was chucked out after 3 days stay- but that's pretty standard in the UK too. all was well though and no major complaints. you will be fine.

Hi,

I arrived here in WA in December just under three months pregnant. Now, this is just MY experiences and I'm sharing them to give you food for thought.

I have found it extremely difficult to settle here and we are planning to return to the Uk before the end of the year. We have many reasons for wanting to return but can't deny the baby is probably the biggest factor. I have found it extremely lonely and isolating being stuck in the house as I worked full time in the UK, many employers were unhappy to employ me as I was pregnant. I had planned to go back to uni in my first year here but even they felt it would be quite a struggle for me, sitting exams whilst eight months pregnant.

On top of this I never anticipated how I would miss family and friends at this time. I do wonder if this feeling was inevitable it just so happens I arrived here pregnant. My parents are deceased and I don't have any siblings so it's my husbands family I have found myself missing, I miss them talking about about the excitement of having another child in the family, the arrival of our baby, buying clothes and baby items. The crucial incident that made me decide going home was the right thing to do was when I told my husband that with this child I would like to take a pink outfit and a blue outfit so when we leave hospital you can tell what gender it is. Without sarcasm or particular thought my husband just replied, "what for, nobodies going to see it!" It hit me like a brick in the face how right he was, nobody to share this magical experience with, nobody to help in those first few weeks (and I'm having a planned c-section).

There are silly things too, after 32 years in the Uk you have a good idea where to buy a decent pushchair or Moses basket, etc but when you arrive here it's difficult to find shops you feel comfortable in. This will sound weird unless you have experienced it. I'm told the eastern side of oz is much different to WA but all of my baby clothes have come from the uk. Everything is just so 'different'.

My husband has settled here and would like to stay for citizenship but has agreed for our families sake that we belong in the UK, even he has now started to feel that the baby being away from the family that will love it so much is difficult to live with.

On a personal note, the move here has made me ill. I believe this is because of the circumstances created by being pregnant. I have been wired up to a heart monitor as it seems I have been having palpitations (never ever experienced anything like this before) and I have developed gestational diabetes which the doctors suggest may have been brought on by the stress of moving here.

If I had read this post before moving out here i would have thought, I'll be fine that won't happen to me but trust me, as somebody who has just been through the emigrating experience, whilst pregnant- you can never anticipate how something so big will affect you.

Good luck in your decision :-)

it's true that having a baby that far away can be a massive upheavel- i did it too, and got through it. ALL of my family and long term friends were back home. but it's not impossible. it depends on your personality, your relationship, and your ability to cope, if this is your first child, well, you won't know how you are going to adapt till it happens, as it's cliche but nothing can prepare you for the life change. if you can wait, perhaps do so. I wish in some ways i had had more support, but saying that, when is it ever easy to live 12,000 miles away from uk family? my child is now nearly three, and it's still not easy. in some ways, if you put it off, you may never come, especially when your family start having a real relationship with your child. can anyone come out to help you for the first 6-8 weeks? just a thought. good luck! and remember, pregnancy is the easy bit- it's when they come out that the real challenges start

We became parents here in Alice springs, which was a bit of a suprise to us. We were on a 457 and as poms had reciprocal card from medicare. Great midwives practice here for the check ups etc. Hospital caters for a very large area and is a bit oversize for what is needed. Great staff and wards etc. Birthplan was out the window though, from minor backache to birth was less than 3 hours. Afterwards, own room, great care etc. Only difference is that midwives don`t really see anything else except breast feeding as normal. lactation specialist based at the hospital etc. Best of luck with the pregnancy, my wife would be happy to have another here.

From my daughters' experiences I would say they look after you really well here - you are not just a number and you get to see the same obstetrician each time. One of my daughters had a very prem baby and amongst all the tears we could see how they looked after her so well, 24 hour non stop care. She is now 6 and doing just fine. My other daughters also had very good experiences and so did I ( I had 2 in UK in the early 70s and 2 here) Private hossies let you stay longer than the public ones on the whole- 4,5 or even 6 days if you need it.

My English wife had our baby in aus in July last year. The only complaint.......the vegetable lasagne one night in hospital was like slop....

You will qualify for free healthcare via Medicare as others have said.

I have an 11 month old who I had on the NHS back in the UK and am now pregnant over here in Oz. There doesn't seem to be much difference so far in terms of the care that you get and I have been pleased so far. Yes, having a baby is stressful anywhere but you just get on with it! Having friends and family around is nice, as we did back home, but I was never one to ask for loads of help or for anyone to babysit and we did just fine. Our little girl was 6 months when we moved over - I've joined lots of playgroups, classes etc, met lots of lovely people and have a lovely social scene - as good as the one I left back home so please don't worry too much. Good luck!

Thank you to everyone that has left comments they are all food for thought and helpful in their own way, this will be baby no: 2 for me so will have a boy of 5 too! good to know that i will get good care in Oz if this was what we had to do, I dont like change and take a while to adapt to things and can be quite emotional at best of times let alone with pregnancy hormones too lol, so i really would like to have in UK as i know the big move is goinf to be hard enough without being pregnant and having it in a new country! The move will be hard whatever i know that i am quite close to family so gonna break my heart whatever! anyhow will hopefully find out in couple of weeks if hubby has job and whether they will wait so guess its just a waiting game for now and see what happens next. Thanks again for all help