the craziness of culture

(I apologize for the unedited grammar and sentence structure. I just have time to type and hit ’send.’ I’ll look it over later…)

This isn’t one of your typical birth stories, complete with bloody details of goo and grime, or with an overload of info about dilation and effacement. But it is a bit interesting, if I say so myself.

Garbanzo’s birth was a planned c-section because Chickpea’s birth ended up being an unplanned one. It wasn’t a major emergency or anything, but with the prognosis of having a 50% chance of requiring c-sections for all future births, plus with this country’s enormous over-dependence on having elective c-sections… well, I really had no other choice. My OB pretty much said that I would have a c-section. And to be honest, I was fine with that in this country.

So when the big Birth Day came, we had a leisurely morning as a family chatting with each other, packing, and spending time with my mom, who had arrived the night before. We checked into the hospital in the afternoon, and we were promptly shown the deluxe suite (probably because we’re Americans). It was a whopping $400 extra a night, so we asked to see the other rooms. We were then shown the $300-extra-per-night room. In the end, we checked into the basic room for NO extra per night. And it was fine - pretty much like a hospital room you’d see in the States.

Anyway. I change in to my lovely paper gown and me, Kabob, and my mom are taken down to the operating floor. They wheel in a bed for me, I was asked to hand over my glasses to Kabob, and I barely get a chance to say goodbye before I’m whisked away (the husbands aren’t allowed in the room for c-section births here). It’s a pretty big deal that I can’t wear my glasses, because I can see JACK SQUAT without them. I’m as blind as they come. So not only am I now partly-deaf due to the language barrier with all the hospital staff, I’m now mostly blind. At this point, I kinda felt like a sitting duck.

So into the operating room I go, and things rather quickly become chaotic. There’s lots of nurses and doctors around, and they ask me questions here and there. I answer in my broken tongue, and I hear them say to each other, “She’s a foreigner.” That explains my deer-in-the-headlight look, I suppose, so after awhile they stop speaking to me and just start doing things to me. They’re pleasant enough, but in general, the people in this country are a bit brasher and rougher by nature than Americans. Because of this, I start to feel poked and prodded around. And since I can’t see anything, I don’t have much advance warning of anything happen. Still - I wasn’t really nervous or upset. I was just wanting to have it all over with. And I was missing Kabob a lot, wishing he was there with me.

Finally, my OB and her assistant come in, both of whom speak great English. Her assistant happens to have Kabob’s camera, and he proceeds to take a bajillion photos of who knows what, mostly me in my paper gown and hair net thingy, looking off into the distance because I can’t see anything.

Now it’s time for the epidural. Obviously I was not looking forward to this, but to be frank, I really was not looking forward to this. It’s one of the reasons I was going for a natural birth with Chickpea, because the thought of having that thing prodded into my spinal cord was more disheartening than the thought of the actual delivery. In my first c-section, the doctors just gave me a local anesthesia - in my back, but it was a one-shot deal, and I started feeling my legs within about an hour after the birth. I really wished they could do that with this c-section, but apparently it wasn’t an option.

Anyway, to cut to the chase… It takes the anesthesiologist three tries to get the darned thing in my back. And it hurt like the dickens the entire time, all the while him telling me things like “arch your back like a cat” in the native language, and me doing my best to comprehend. My OB and her assistant just keep saying things like, “We are so proud of you” in broken English, and I instead try to focus on that. Apparently, the anesthesiologist did what he needed to do, because he finally finished, and I could lay down.

I’m strapped down with my wrists out on either side of me, and they attach the blood pressure cuff on my bicep. It’s on so tight that my arm routinely loses feeling every time it balloons, and it eventually the cuff just pops off. Instead of lessening its grip, the nurses TAPE IT BACK ON ME. So now, not only is it on ridiculously tight, it’s taped on me in such a way that it couldn’t go anywhere if it wanted to. I still have bruises on my arm from that thing.

The doctors ask me what I’m going to name the umbilical cord. I’m told this is a tradition in this country, and that if I can’t come up with one, I should call it “Arap.” This is the OB’s assistant’s name. I tell him I’m fine with this. I hope they don’t give it to me later or something.

The doctor also puts a blue “good luck” charm on me, telling me it’s also a tradition here and that it will bring me success in my delivery. I’d take it off if I could, but my arms were strapped down.

So the doctors and staff are waiting for the epidural to take effect, and I’m lying there with all of them watching me - I’m strapped down, I can’t see, and I mostly can’t understand what they’re saying. Then they put that curtain thingy in front of my face, so that I can’t see what’s going on (so glad for that). However, below the curtain they proceed to strip me down completely, and I can’t even describe to you how beyond uncomfortable it is to have all those total strangers able to do whatever to me while I’m completely undressed and mostly blind. And I start to get really cold, too.

Then comes the best part of the entire ordeal - they test to see if the epidural is taking effect. At first it’s not so bad. The doctor swabs a dab of cold liquid on my leg and asks if I can feel it. I can. He does it again to my abdomen, and yes, I can feel that too. He starts doing this more and more, all over. I can feel it all, and it’s getting colder and colder. Then they proceed, without warning, to put in the catheter - as a means of testing whether I can feel anything, mind you. And let me tell you, I still can. I let them know.

Things quickly become a blur for me, and time rapidly starts speeding up. Next thing I know, they are pouring ice-cold water on my abdomen to see if I can feel it. Since they do it without advance notice, I can’t help but scream, and my teeth start to chatter. I start to shake with cold. They pour the water on me again, again, and again. Three or four times they do this.

Finally, my OB says, “Can you feel this?,” and I feel a stabbing pain in my abdomen so excruciating, my mind goes to those doctor shows on TLC about people who go through surgery without the anesthesia taking effect. I scream, “YES! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!!!!”

The last thing I remember was her telling me, “Okay, we’re going to sedate you.”

I then wake up in the recovery room with Kabob and my mom at my side. I’m freezing cold, and I have layers of blankets on me. I find out later that this is just the normal side effect from coming out of general anesthesia, but at the time I was wondering what on earth just happened to me, and what meat locker I was stored in.

And then the nurse finally wheeled in Garbanzo. I got to see him for the first time.

This is when I start realizing what happened, that I had already given birth, that it was all over with, and that I was out of it the entire time. Kabob fills me in on some of the details, like that Garbanzo’s lungs were filled with amniotic fluid and that his umbilical cord was wrapped around him twice, so he was put in an incubator for an hour or so. He was now fine, so they brought him to us, and thankfully - THANKFULLY - he stayed in our room the rest of the time.

My recovery time at the hospital was much less eventful, thank goodness. The staff are pretty hands-off - in that they’ll bring you the necessary pain killers, but beyond that, you’re on your own unless you ask them for something. I think they came in to check my blood pressure twice, and the baby’s nurse came three times to give antibiotics to Garbanzo (because of the fluid in his lungs). Every now and then we would call Kabob’s mom in Oregon, a nurse, to run things by her and ask her if what the hospital is doing sounded normal. For the most part, it was, so we were thankful to know that.

I had to ask a nurse to remove my epidural thingy in my back. They didn’t realize it was still in. It wasn’t removed until day two.

We had to special-order his circumcision, because in this culture, they circumcise boys between 8-14 years of age. The pediatric surgeon said he had done this to newborns “thousands of times,” and the nurse even brought us his… uh - leftovers - in case we wanted to do something with it. Put it in the baby book? I don’t know. We declined. The surgeon also apologized to us for his “crap English.” It was hard not to smile.

The OB came a few times to check my incision, and mentioned that the good luck charm apparently didn’t work. I found this amusing. She was also so proud of my stitches that she gave me a mirror to admire her work.

Overall, I’m glad it’s over with. I would not recommend a foreigner going through their first birth here, but I am relieved that, like my pregnancy, the birth and recovery was rather uneventful. Well, except for the anesthesia part. And of course, the end result was all worth it - a perfect little addition to our family, a son.

I’ll share more stuff as I have time and energy. For the most part, I’m doing amazingly well. I went to the grocery store yesterday, I have more energy than I’ve had in awhile, and it feels soooooo good not to be pregnant any more. Garbanzo is an excellent sleeper, so I feel like I’m actually getting some rest. And with my mom in town, my goodness - I almost wonder what to do with my time.

Almost. Because for now, I just want to enjoy my growing family.

Well, I had this embedded into this post, but it screwed up the page’s layout somehow.  I don’t have time to tweak it, so instead, I’ll just link to it.

I have enough language blunders of my own, so it’s refreshing to make fun of other people.  I’ve seen this video about 10 times, at every language learning seminar I’ve been to, but it still makes me laugh.  HT to Kathy for e-mailing it to us.

As we passed the 10,000th person at the grocery store ogling Chickpea’s blonde hair and blue eyes, pinching her cheeks and fingering her hair…

“Oh Mommy, look at that nice old lady - isn’t she cute? Oh, how sweet.”

She has now turned the tables on the locals, and is treating them they way they treat her. If only they understood English…

Two days ago we invited our neighbors over to our home.  In this culture, people mostly do the tea thing - you have guests over either before or after dinner, normally around 5 p.m. or 8 p.m., and have tea accompanied by a sweet and savory side dish.  The event lasts around two hours, although if you go before dinner, it can last all night (as it did for us the other week).

Well, this was a family we’ve hung out with quite a bit, so we went ahead and took the plunge and invited them for dinner.  We’ve been told that having guests over for dinner signifies an interest in a real friendship, and not just a cordial acquaintance.  And here, real friendship, over time, can become fairly intense, depending on the people.  We’ve really clicked with these neighbors of ours, so we want this to be the case.

We also went all-out and did something else daring - we had Mexican food for dinner.  That’s right, I made chicken enchiladas, Spanish rice, refried beans, salsa, and tortilla chips, with pumpkin chocolate chip bread for dessert.  This is a culture that doesn’t derivate too far from the usual food fare, so I knew it would be a risky move.  But these friends of ours are pretty globally-minded - they speak English, they both have advanced degrees, and they’re about as post-modern and urban as you can get for a local here.

So we figured - why not go with food I know how to do, instead of pretend like I know how to make the local food, and end up with a mediocre meal at best?  It turned out to be a great move - they loved it.  I was honestly surprised.  At first, when I brought out the enchiladas, the wife thought it was a type of lasagna, and I thought “oh no, here we go.”  But when I described how to make them, she realized she’d never had this type of exotic food, and wanted a sample.  It was a hit with her, and her husband even took seconds.  Whoa!

Of course, their four-year-old daughter, who is an over-the-top picky eater anyway, told her parents that she had had enchiladas before, and didn’t care for them.  They forced one bite down her throat, then she was allowed to play.  This was true to form in this culture (although at home, her mom would have spoon-fed her.  Most kids are spoon-fed until they go to kindergarten, where they learn how to feed themselves for the first time.  They think Chickpea is a downright genius).  And even truer to form, later they gave her some sugar cubes to suck on.

Even though it’s cool-ish outside here,  I find it to be sweltering in our home because our neighbors above and below us have their heaters going full-speed (and of course, I am eight months pregnant) .  The hallways of our building are also heated, and it will probably be that way until May or so.  So we were concerned how to keep our home warm enough for our guests to be comfortable, yet not so warm that I pass out.  Seriously - poor Kabob has been freezing in our home these days, because I’m always so dadgum hot.  We went ahead and closed the windows we usually keep open, and we put away our fans.  I dressed in short-sleeves and capris, and Chickpea wore a sundress.  Trust me, we were more than fine - this place is warm.

So I had to laugh when the first thing the wife said when she entered our home was, “Oh my goodness!  Chickpea is naked!”  And she bent down to rub her arms and legs, to keep her from getting frostbite I suppose.  Chick just smiled and gave her a hug.

Overall, our first experience of hosting locals in our own home went well.  I was definitely wiped out at the end of the evening, and I’m not sure how much more I can do before Garbanzo’s birth.  But we’re glad we did it, and we hope it’s one more step towards getting to know our new friends.