The windows overlook the bush and the sea in the distance. There is a bed close to the window, only 4 beds in a little room and nobody was there. There is another bigger room but neither of them was very busy just one lady waiting for the moment when her baby will start pushing through to come to the other side to see for the first time the face of the mother the baby knew so intimately for the 9 months yet does not know the look of her face. How many times does this happen that you are connected with one another, sharing the same food and breath and blood, stay in the same place ever moment of your life for months yet don’t know each other’s face?
There was no other patient in the hospital. The women here usually know the right moment to rock into the hospital straight into the labour timing it all quite precisely, they do not need to wait in the hospital for a long time during their contractions.
Even if it is their first baby there is plenty of mamas and aunties around, each of them knowing the whole process so very well from their own experience, each of them probably have given life to at least 3 or4 and quite likely 5 or 6 children that now roam around the house making it alive and vibrant just like every islander like their house to be.
In the part of the world from which Marcus and I come from children are a luxury many can not afford, they are often distraction to life, the end to the carrear, an expense, a perspective legal case in the event of divorce. If people want to have them, they rarely decide to have more than one or two. Mothers often give birth at a later age rushed by the biological clock and fear that later on they may regret they did not take the chance to try to be a woman and a mother before being a sucesfull lawyer or accountant.
Whilst in Europe these woman are treated with a lot of care and some caution, birth at a later age being treated as a dramatic or shocking experience for the body, here these woman are the ones that feel most comfortable with it as they are most accustomed to it, having already carried few lives in them for them giving birth is one of the most natural thing. Giving birth here is a part of life, not a big deal and noone maks a big fuss about it .
The only fuss is about the baby once it is there because every one is being expected with a lot of excitement. It matters not how many is already there, the new one is always waited for and welcome. someone said it is like a new flower in the garden, new sprout on the branch of the tree. each of them is a confirmation of life and vitality, each new and fresh, each different from the other, unique.
So the little hospital on the hill is now preparing to welcome another life. The room will be probably just as quiet when you will be feeling the urge to emerge from the warm safe bubble inside my body to that big unknown world you now only hear and sense through my skin.
So here there is a gift for you my little one. You will come to one of the most beautiful parts of the world, where nature is soft and stunning, the sun is bright and warm and so are the people. When I hold you in my arms and dad will drive us back to our little house on the beach we will not be stuck in the traffic jams, stopping on the lights, we won’t hear the beeping, there will be no hussle. We may drive sloe for a while before we overtake a couple of bikes cruising along no faster than 40 km an hour thanks to the law that stipulates that you do not need to wear a helmet here provided you don’t drive faster than 40. You could not force the people to wear the helmets, how otherwise the mamas could dress their heads in fancy hats decorated with shells, ribbons and flowers when they drive to the church on Sunday. Not many people are in a hurry so 40 it is- the speed of life.
We may hurry just a little bit more, pass a few lazy bikes on the way, get to the other side of the island just slightly quicker. We will carry you to the beach and sit on the smooth sand swept by the gentle waves. We will thank the universe for you and let you feel the salty water on your skin and tongue. This will be your first experience of the world, your loving parents, the sun, the sea, the taste of salt, the stunning beauty and sensuality of this world. The house will have frangipani smell in the air, maybe there will be an ei waiting for us or just lose flowers in the vase…
My little girl, I hope you will always be grateful for the world you will have around you. Wether we will continue living in this little paradise or elsewhere, there are always good things about every place, it may be waves swept lagoon beach or crazy installation artwork on the backyard of the underground Ljubljana clubs, it all depends how you see and perceive things you look at. The sun can be too bright and sand make your feet dirty, you can be miserable in every place or happy in every place. You can just walk pass the beauty and never notice it. Everywhere life will take you my little one, look for the things and see beyond, find something to be grateful for, something to be happy about. Look for it in your life and in the people you love and in the stranger you don’t know yet but who can save your life or become your best friend one of the days that follow.
Where ever you are remember what your first experience of the world was, the protective and caring arms of your dad around you and me, the love in his eyes and perhaps the tears of joy, the world of unsurpassing beauty, the scent of seawater and flowers in the air, the sea breeze on your skin. Where ever you are, remember there is always a paradise somewhere but the beauty is not just there, it is in you and in your eyes and in the way you look at things.
It is still a bit scary to be here so far from the family, in the world i know so little, in the culture I am not yet that familiar with, going through the biggest and mst important experience of my life. It would not be easy for us both now to go to Europe for 3 whole months to await your birth and the last thing in the world i would want is to have you without your dad being there, for him to miss the birth giving, for me to welcome you alone. I could not risk that, I rather risk anything else but this.
This was my thinking when I drove to the local hospital with some apprehension to see the place where I would give birth to you if we decide to stay here. I desperately needed to find something good about giving birth here. There is a cost, a danger of complications in case of which it might have been better to be in one of the western countries, to have it here may be a further costs and in this case, an unpredictable one. It was scary to think what a normal, casual every day occurrence the birth giving is here, women used to child bearing and birth giving in numbers for generations, the ease of it passed in genes and from experience whilst for me this thing is so strange new and terrifying.
I have never even experienced one birth from up close, apart from a vague memory of my mum carrying my brother and giving birth when i was 8 or so, then seeing the little baby when i visited her or she visited grandma’s house there is no other clear recollection of a pregnant woman who would be part of my reality.
I spoke to the midwife while waiting to see the doctor. She was very friendly and chatty, curious about me giving birth in Rarotonga. There is not much difference in the delivery in the hospital here and in new Zealand she said, the only one being that they do not use painkillers “the ladies here are really strong, they don’t need them’ she went on telling me. “Uplifting’ was my first thought. It’s a different culture and a different race, different build, different pain threshold probably, will I be able to cope with this or will I be a white papa’e crying in pain when other women staunchly go through it with little or no complain. Will I be a cry baby in the place where noone will feel sorry or sympathetic to my labour pain but just surprised that I make such a fuss of it, I pondered sulkily.
But as I went on waiting still chatting to that friendly midwife and another one who joined us I was slowly changing my mind about the whole experience. Everything is not supposed to be safe and easy. I started discovering real genuine interest and care, excitement about my birth giving and the baby I was to bring to the world in this little hospital on that hill heavy with fruiting mango trees.
These two ladies so used to seeing birth all around them and dealing with it in the hospital on every day basis and yet both of them squeezed themselves behind me into the doctor’s office, both hurrayed when the doctor said he would do quick ultrasound and got excited almost as much as i looking at your little head and feet on the screen. “Would you like to know the sex” the doctor asked and both of them answered with enthusiasm yes before i made up my mind. “ladies, maybe let the mum decide” the young doctor rebuked them laughing and i said yes let us know. I though I may as well tell marcus myself, perhaps it will be even nicer if he hears it from me, i was sure he would not mind finding out here and then, we did not care anyway if you were boy or girl we would love you just the same.
But my attitude changed that very moment when two excited aunties – midwifes waited with me to find out who you were and seeing their wide open smiling eyes rejoicing the girl arriving to the world here soon, perhaps being delivered by one of them.
I do want to give the birth here. it will be so much easier for your dad, he would not need to worry how to secure his job when he would need to take 3 months off to come to Europe with us. There is so much stress n his life already, uncle Claudio was laughing once talking to him saying oh Marcus here you were having your quaint stressless life in a far away place and here you have Ewa, the most beautiful person you can hope for and the biggest tornado or cyclone you may fear. So now he can have at least one stress less and we can be here with him experiencing your birth with me in this wonderful culture where the midwifes are still excited to see a new baby on the screen, where the fijian aunty clasps her hands when I promise to come to her birth giving lessons, where mama nicky when hears about me wanting to have an influence of an older wise lady on your life, having a local nanna for you here offers enthusiastically and without a second thought “i can be a grandmother” even though her own daughter is expecting just one month after me and her other little grandson is always with her in the house. This does not matter here, the nanna can have 4, 5 or 10 grandchildren in her house but still one more will be welcome just as much as the first one, there will be never too much, and every new addition, every new ringing little voice asking thousands questions, every little feet running up and down the steps and spinning around in circles making the adults dizzy will just bring life and joy into the house.
They will be almost the same age, my daughters son and your daughter, it will be great to have them in the house together – said Nicky and told me about children growing up together and being attached to each other like real brothers or sisters. She talks about her parents and their house full of children and how she once wanted to send them all to their parents after hearing her dad moaning about the noise and how quickly he protested saying she just have to let him moan but the house without children will be like the garden without flowers and he will be like a gardener with an empty garden. Like an officer without an army to boos around.
I always loved experiencing new cultures and sopgiving birth in the end of the world will be this ultimate cultural experience. Oh yes, there was a thought to take it even a step further and perhaps give birth in the outback Australia or Papua New Guinea, a very traditional birth, but this made your dad really frustrated. He cares too much for me to let me do things that may not be safe and now he cares too much for both of us so your mum was “slapped on the hands’ for her “interesting” ideas this time. Gee I remember you dad getting upset about it and me thinking he doesn’t understand me and looking for some compassion in the conversation with my mum but this worked totally wrong, she just thought i was crazy and marcus was totally right and should have just tie me to chair or something until I will these sort of ideas out of my head. Claudio, my last possible support, well he always supported me in everything so here was a safe bad i thought and someone will feel sorry for my desire not being understood or supported, this time also told me that in this case he would be far more happy to know me and baby is secure and marcus is totally right and no wonder would have got frustrated or even angry because of how much he loves me and cares and o he would like to do anything for me but this obviously would be wrong and dangerous for me so he can’t. So this time i had to admit that it makes no sense to look for some sort of alliance or support, the other two people that care for me has the same attitude so obviously they had their reasons and i was wrong. Even if it was safe enough but got all the ones i love so frustrated it made no sense to have those dreams, it would have been damn selfish. I called your dad and admitted to my attempts to get others to feel sorry for me and how he does not understand me and that both of them failed and that he was right and i should have thought about how worried he would be and that it would frustrate him and he laughed and told me he loves me and he should not get that upset and he understands my desire to experience the natural traditional birth but he will be happy if I will be safe and this time he would really appreciate if i took no risk but i don’t need to be upset about worrying him, he always worries too much anyway. So i hoped that at least he will feel a bit sorry for me and i get some sympathy from him this time not for no birth giving in PNG but my failed attempts to get support and of course i got, amongst hearth y laughs.
So here it will be safe and whilst the birthgiving itself may not be as different as it could be elsewhere the new culture is not in the way the baby is brought to the world. The australian desert might have been a more interesting and challenging setting and the traditional chants and herbs more of a cultural adventure than a little hospital on the hill in Rarotonga but the culture is in the attitude, in the way people look at the newborn, in the joy of the midwife, the nanas ready to welcome you as their grandaughter, in many many small things and some times finding these cultural differences in nuances is far more rewarding than a national geographic type of strange and different culture total emersion with distinctive rituals and customs.
And so it all changed. All the fears more or less went away, bringing you to what will be your home here in the country that is supposed to be your home makes sense and makes me happy, to bring you to the world where nature and people are so welcoming and warm.
I am now off to work and have to hurry a bit, spent far too long writing. It was supposed to be short. Actually it was supposed to just say what a wonderful weekend we had and lovely and loving morning, the moments to remember like dad urging me to go for a quick swim before work, while he took the car to fill the tires with air, wash it and refill with water and to made sure I can safely drive to work, the feeling in my tummy when i realised he still did not leave but was waiting for me when i was coming back fresh from the morning swim in the lagoon and so i can press my wet body to him and he could hug me and kiss not minding getting wet, before jumping onto the bike and rushing to work. It was just a moment but made my day.
I hope to fill up my life with moments and memories like this. hey soon you will be a part of these moments and memories, creating them for both of us. And as you will be too small to remember them at first, they will be all here for you too, like your first look at the lagoon and touch of your mum’s and dad’s wet salty finegrs on your little, hopefully smiling face.
can’t wait to see you baby:)
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Heute habe ich noch einmal Ewa`s Tagebuch für Haumea gelesen. ( mit Übersetzung).
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