Baby!

One of my better friends here, Christy, has been pregnant all year, and I’ve watched her tummy grow, and seen how uncomfortable she has gotten in this heat. And I know she was ready to have this baby.

Late Wednesday night (coincidentally after baking cookies for me!) she went in to labor. The practice here, unfortunately, does not allow her husband to be in the room with her, so Tom, her husband, had to wait for the 20 hours she was in labor without seeing her. And she couldn’t see him or communicate with him.

Talk about a rough night.

I can’t imagine how hard that would be. Here you are, having your first baby, and you are going it alone, surrounded only by foreign doctors and nurses even though your husband is close by.

What’s more, they didn’t tell Tom when she had the baby, but he briefly saw her rolled out of the operating room (she had a Cesarian) and the baby rolled to the ICU. He asked the nurse to at least tell him the gender of the baby, and the nurse told him he would have to ask his wife. At this point, all he knew was the baby was in ICU, but didn’t know why, and his wife was still under anaesthesia, so he couldn’t talk to her. (They also kept telling him “big baby!” even though the baby was only 8 pounds, but that’s big for a baby in Asia.)

Two hours later, she was awake and could tell Tom the baby was a boy. However, despite being the father, Tom is only allowed in for regular visiting hours, which are an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

Even worse than that, Christy had yet to even see her baby. It’s been almost two days now, and she has hardly seen the baby, and Tom has only seen him through the glass observation window.

The baby is only in ICU per procedure, so there isn’t actually anything wrong with him. But how frustrating to have your baby taken away from you, and you can’t even have regular visitors!

Another couple here are also expecting in about a month, and after what Tom and Christy went through, they were seriously considering flying to Australia to have the baby.

It’s just so different culturally. Technologically, they are as advanced as any other first world country, but culturally it is very different from the West.

So, needless to say, if and when I some day have children, I will not be having my baby here.