Suze Returns

According to my calculations I should have a baby any day now. My official due date is this Sunday, 4 November. Most women I speak to who are due now are doing all sorts of nutty things to get labour started. I’ve heard you can drink castor oil, eat 5 pineapples a day, suck on fresh chillies or take 4 hour long walks. None of this sounds particularly fun to me so I’m just taking it easy, letting nature take it’s course.

Don’t get me wrong, waddling around at 9 months pregnant is far from glamorous. In fact I’ve been fantasizing about the following:

* Not being overtaken by REALLY old people walking down the street

* A steak, medium rare thanks

* Not being ogled by weird men with pregnant women fetishes (I didn’t know they existed either)

* Wearing high heels

* Picking things up off the floor (although that has had it’s advantages)

* A bottle (or two) of Pipers Brook Gewurz Traminer Riesling

* Not crying during life insurance commercials

* Never ever again hearing, “Oh my god you are HUGE” from otherwise polite and sensitive friends, family members and sometimes even random people in the street. What is the expected response to that… Thank you??

All of the above will be great, but I’ve done my research, actually looking after a baby isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Did you know that even if you get a “good” baby you have to feed them every 3 hours? THREE HOURS. It doesn’t sound too bad until you imagine your day keeping in mind that the actual feeding process can take up to an hour. I can handle a respectable 7am feed and can see myself writing off the 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm feeds to a really long day but then I think about the 1am and 4am timeslots and can’t help but wonder …. when do new mother’s sleep?! I guess never.So for now I’m not impatient for labour to start. I‘m making the most of my last “me time“. After all I probably won’t have any more lazy, sunny days reading in the backyard for the next 25 years or so.

Things have been quiet on the pregnancy front.   The move is an excellent distraction and aside from feeling like I’ve expanded to the size of a small continent, things are going well.  I’ve managed to stay sober for 8 long months and while I have bored the pants off people at parties I’m relieved the 16 week spewathon I endured in the early stages is well and truly behind me.   

I went to birth classes at the hospital last week and finally got some unbiased medical information about what lays ahead.  Very scary.  We watched some graphic birth videos where the women looked as though they were being brutally tortured.  Why don’t they show you these things BEFORE you get pregnant?!  I’m starting to believe there is a conspiracy in place that hushes up this information until it’s too late.    

I think my new best friend’s name is epidural.   

Keep your fingers crossed for me.    

You may have already gathered we are going to Australia to have the baby….? 

Given the fact I’ll be 32 weeks pregnant (i.e. a mammoth), it’s a 24 hour flight and we have no house or jobs many people are assuming I’ve finally gone off the deep end.   They could be right.   Yet when faced with the alternative of delivering in Holland, it’s a no brainer.  Here are some lessons I’ve learned about the Dutch approach to childbirth 

• When I asked my GP about the option of epidural he told me “In Holland we do not offer this as women must suffer to appreciate being mothers”.  I felt a strong physical urge to make him understand suffering right there and then but restrained myself and settled for a verbal onslaught.  I told him his outdated, sexist attitude might explain why Holland has the highest infant mortality rate in Europe. He replied in dead seriousness that the real reason for the high rate was all the immigrants moving to Holland.  I got up and left. 
• After switching to an American GP I asked for a referral to an obstetrician to take care of my prenatal care and the delivery.  She told me OBs don’t exist in Holland.  High risk pregnancies are handled by gynecologists but the majority of pregnancies go through midwife practices.   I told her given my family history of complications I wanted a qualified doctor.  She valiantly called every gynecologist in the state, but they all refused to take me on, even if I paid out of my own pocket.   So I pay 200AUD a month for private health insurance and can’t see a doctor while I’m pregnant.

• My GP researched the most “progressive” midwife practice in Utrecht and sent me to the WKZ hospital.  I have to admit my midwife, Rita, is really nice.  She sees quite a few foreigners who are accustomed to a higher standard of health care so she’s heard all the outrage before.  She told me the standard is to deliver at home, I could try and get into a hospital but my insurance wouldn’t cover it unless there are complications.  In addition to this a hospital delivery is midwife assisted and I can’t choose the midwife.  That’s probably the scariest part as all other midwives I’ve met are bullying, moralistic and full of misinformation (e.g. at my first birth class the midwife told me delivering in hospital is “bad” for the baby…..)  

If this weren’t enough every time I speak to somebody about their birth experience it’s a nightmare.   

• One colleague at Canon called up the midwife when his wife’s contractions were 3 minutes apart and intense.  The midwife told him she was busy having a coffee with friends and would stop by later to check in, the midwife didn’t show for hours, didn’t answer his calls and he ended up delivering his wife’s baby himself
• Another colleague was in labour for 48 hours.  She was in agony and wanted to go to hospital.   Her midwife told her to stop being so childish and forced her husband downstairs where they watched TV while she was screaming upstairs alone.  Eventually the husband called an ambulance; she had an emergency c-section and was told the baby almost died
• An Australian colleague who thought she could outsmart the midwife mafia made her midwife promise to organize an epidural if she asked for one.  When labour started the midwife kept stalling her when she requested they leave for the hospital.  By the time they arrived it was too late for pain relief.  The midwife told her smugly that it was her plan all along

Is it crazy in this country or is it just me?   If I hear one more time that the rest of the world “medicalises” the natural process of childbirth I’ll scream. 100 years ago 1 in 10 women died during childbirth.  Things can go wrong, even in low risk pregnancies.   I’m not advocating that all women get drugged up and have a medical army on call.  But it is 2007, shouldn’t we be able to choose the type of healthcare we feel most comfortable with?