As we went to give birth in the US without intermediaries. Part of 1
'03.04.2018'
Source: Dou.ua
This text should not be used as a guide. Rather, on the contrary, it is important to see the mistakes and not repeat them on their own experience. Moreover, I am a person who likes to solve life problems "on-the-fly", which in some cases cost us nerves and money.
From what it all began
My wife and I suddenly had the idea to have a baby in the USA, on New Year's Eve, Ukrainian Mikhail Dorokhin tells for Dou.ua... We love to travel and have been planning to go to the USA for a long time, but our hands did not reach. Firstly, it takes time, the USA is not a small country that can be seen in a few days. And the states do sometimes differ more from each other than some European countries. Secondly, overcoming longhaul with a small child is a very thankless process. Therefore, there was always a more geographically attractive country to replace.
So, on New Year's, all the cards, as they say, came together: I blurted out - she agreed. At that time, the term was 4 months, Day X was scheduled for May 21. I had just taken a long-term vacation due to general fatigue and back problems, so we had no particular reason to deny ourselves this action.
Site Selection
Decided - then decided. But for this you also need to do something. My wife began to read the Internet about this, I did not bother her and drank coffee. As it turned out, for such scenarios, they even came up with a name - Rodotourism. There are enough companies that will help you in this difficult matter. The main location is Miami, California is less often chosen, but a ready-made package of services in the case of Cali is much more expensive. Most of their services include: buying air tickets, meeting, providing apartments, choosing a hospital, providing a Russian-speaking nurse, assistance with paperwork, and the like. None of the above seemed necessary to us, and we immediately decided not to resort to such services and do everything ourselves. After the fact, I can say that even in terms of help with the hospital, they offer a price much lower than we paid. I'm wondering what is included in this amount. But this is not very relevant to the topic now.
Since most of our future stay was in the summer months, we did not like the idea of spending this time in hot and very humid Miami. The search for the place continued - they opened the map and began to move northward. Someone we know advised us to Seattle, but we rejected the option because "it's too cold." Stumbled upon the experience of a tourist in Salt Lake City, we liked it. Beautiful nature, temperate climate with good summers, reasonable prices and a high percentage of successful natural births. Without thinking for a long time, we stopped at it.
Length of stay
We received a visa in December, a tourist visa for 10 years. I will not dwell on the process of obtaining, there is a lot of information on this topic. The only thing I will note is that I was NOT given B1 / B2, but only B2, since I have a valid contract with an American company. I did not feel any restrictions on this. The standard duration of stay on this visa is 6 months, we got a little less than 5. We decided to fly out in March and stay there until August. So that there is time to adapt and move away. Moreover, in February we planned 2 weeks of the sea and 2 trips to Poland to visit friends.
Air
Immediately after that, they decided to buy tickets. The earlier, the cheaper. Since our trio consisted of an 2-year-old child, a pregnant mom and a captain with a problem back, I decided to take business class tickets so that the journey would not start from hard labor. With departure from Kiev, there is only one option: with a transfer in Amsterdam, per person is about 4, and since a child is paid for 100% since two years old, it looked too much. I also note that in KLM, chairs in business class are not flat-seat. Found an option Delta from Madrid with a good time of departure and arrival, a pleasant change and the price in 5 to $ 3 for three. For reference, each airline has its own rules and restrictions for traveling pregnant. AT Delta, for example, there are no restrictions, even give birth in an airplane. For the UIA flight to Madrid, his wife needed a certificate with the duration of pregnancy and the absence of a ban from a doctor.
Prepare
Then there were trips to my parents, Krakow, Mars-Alam, Warsaw, friends - so the preparation process went very slowly. We read about the hospital in Salt Lake City, wrote to everyone. They wanted to know about the very possibility of giving birth, the approximate price, to get a written confirmation of the agreement for a smooth passage of the American border. The first savagery that we felt was that there were almost no contacts on the official websites of the hospitals. The maximum is a telephone. Therefore, the process of communication with Ukraine was not very simple. Secondly, on the other side of the tube, no one knows anything and cannot help.
As a result, we were able to receive an active e-mail from a friend, in the dialogue we received an answer something like “come, we will decide on the spot”. Compared to all other options, we read it as: “Of course you can give birth with us without any problems. We simply cannot live without you. Come, we are glad to see you ”. We decided that this letter would be enough for the border guards, and in principle, for us.
At this time, we happened to meet a guy whose family emigrated to Portland in the nineties. Bond kept wife mostly through Facebook... In his conversations, he began to advise us Portland: firstly, he can help us with whatever he can, and secondly, Oregon was recognized as the best food state in 2015, and thirdly, his wife had just given birth to a child, and he has experience in this issue. There were many arguments. We slowly started leaning towards Portland, in the end the choice of location was changed.
Apartments
Initially they were going to spend the first week in a hotel and during that time find accommodation on the spot. But it turned out that there are not so many short-term options up to 12 months. More precisely, very, very little. Apartments, selected from Ukraine, cost us 1476 dollars per month. For reference, the same apartment in the same complex for a local with an annual contract costs a little more than a thousand. Since we had a ticket to Salt Lake City, we decided to spend the days of 8-10 on a trip to Yellowstone. And from there go to Portland.
Finance
They took $ 13000 in cash with them, everything else - cards. Most of the cash was returned home. To be honest, they were more problematic than useful. But more on that later. There were five bank cards. In Ukraine, they left a duplicate dollar card so that I could replenish the currency in the terminal if necessary. I did not hold more than $ 10000 on cards.
During the trip, one of the banks blocked the card three times - as it turned out, this is due to the old terminals of some Starbucksthat ignore PIN code, and the bank takes it for theft. The card incident was in LA when the hotel canceled our booking at 10 evenings because it was unable to make any money and this was the last room. I had to look for a hotel for today almost in the middle of the night. Also, some self-service machines at gas stations do not accept our cards.
Insurance
My tariff plan in one of the banks gives me and my wife travel insurance on 30000 $. In principle, I have not found more than 50 thousands in Ukraine. As I was informed, this amount will be enough for a maximum of 2 day in intensive care in case of anything. Therefore, I purchased a local for foreign tourists in the HCC on 1000000 with the 0 franchise. Three for the entire period cost $ 800. I can not tell anything about it, I have never used it. All alive and well.
Departure
In principle, this is all, we did nothing more. Gathered things and flew off for a week in Madrid. It became interesting to check in for a plane to Atlanta. We were waiting for an interview, but on arrival, and not in Madrid. We arrived at the airport in two hours. We were not registered, asked to wait. A woman, 50-60, approached, and began to ask us about everything. Who are they? Why in Madrid? Why in the USA? Why in Salt Lake? And what is this belly? Hey, do you have money? And how much? And cash? And the ticket back? And your family? And friends? Why not in Miami? And what of Madrid? And what was done in Egypt? Denmark? Poland? Of Hungary? Where do you work? And you? Who are they? Simple questions that have been repeated for a long time in different sequences. We did not lie, talked like it is, perhaps that is why we were not nervous at all. The check-in procedure at the counter took about an hour. At the end, she said that for 20 years of work she sees such a strange little family for the first time.
We had another security control, American. Much tougher. At this point, my son was already tired of going through all these procedures and began to be capricious. Departure for 10 minutes, our names are already called along with the words last callbut security controls don't care. They completely sort out things, charge discharged equipment, turn on and superficially view the content of the camera. Unfortunately, after checking, the child wanted to go to the toilet and his wife took him there without asking permission of the security workers. It seemed to them very suspicious, and they wanted to check them again on their return. We were rescued by the aircraft stewards, who at that moment came running and literally beat us off and led us to the plane.
Arrival
We arrived in Atlanta on Tuesday at one o'clock in the afternoon. As they say, in business time. I hoped to spend the allocated 5 hours on the transfer to play with the child so that he released the energy accumulated in the plane. He was still going to eat. Relax. Yeah, now. We were met by an endless queue for electronic registration, and then another, no less, to the border guards, which we defended for more than three hours. After that, I advise everyone to bypass hubs such as ATL or JFK.
The conversation with the border guard was simple, the questions were predictable and they were significantly less than in Madrid. But the cash we were asked to declare, despite the fact that it was distributed between me and my wife and each had less than 10. It is considered the total amount per family. This process took us about an hour. After all the queues, we didn’t have time to rest, another security control was waiting for us. There happened the first really unpleasant moment. When the wife’s turn came, she was told to go to a cylindrical device (I don’t know what it is called) to be enlightened. The reaction of the wife that she was pregnant in the eighth month and it is not recommended, received a response from the employee: "You knew where you came." Honestly, it was a shock. Firstly, in no country in Europe a pregnant woman appears through, secondly, even if it is necessary to do this in the USA, no employee has the right to release such comments. Unfortunately, we were in a hurry and we did not have the opportunity to receive a comment from their superiors on this behavior. Fly to Salt Lake.
To be continued.
