We moved to Bogota when I was around 28 weeks along. I was kind of scared to give birth here in Colombia: not because I doubted the quality of care that I would be receiving (unlike the advice that I got from several non-Colombian family members who had never been to Colombia, at least not in the last few decades) but because I was worried about the high C-section rate prevalent among private hospitals. We decided that we would meet with the OBGYN, Dr. Alfredo Ruiz Rivadeneira, that my cousin had recommended to see if he seemed like the pushy doctor who valued his time more than my and my baby's health.
We found out I was pregnant one morning in Rome. It sounds more romantic than it actually is because we were staying in a room, in a crappy hotel, that smelled like mothballs and was making me even more nauseous than normal. When we got back to Hungary, I emailed my midwife from my first pregnancy and asked her if it was OK to wait until the start of the second trimester in order to seek prenatal care. I knew that we were going to be traveling for the next 6 weeks and trying to find an OBGYN was something I didn't really want to do if I didn't have to. Since I basically had a normal pregnancy last time and felt fine this time, she said it was up to me to wait. So, I did. I didn't see a midwife until we came back to the states in October. I was 13 weeks along.
We moved to Bogota when I was around 28 weeks along. I was kind of scared to give birth here in Colombia: not because I doubted the quality of care that I would be receiving (unlike the advice that I got from several non-Colombian family members who had never been to Colombia, at least not in the last few decades) but because I was worried about the high C-section rate prevalent among private hospitals. We decided that we would meet with the OBGYN, Dr. Alfredo Ruiz Rivadeneira, that my cousin had recommended to see if he seemed like the pushy doctor who valued his time more than my and my baby's health.
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We flew in to Amsterdam on a rainy night. We climbed out of the cab with all of our luggage (me, holding a 50 lb stroller bag filled with a stroller, a mini bike, and toys on my back and lugging Des along on top of another rolling suitcase and Bill, with one of those really tall camping/hiking/metal frame backpacks and another rolling suitcase). I was exhausted and couldn't wait to slide into bed.
The apartment we rented was absolutely beautiful. It faced a little square, so across the way I could see a flower shop, a tailor, a cafe, and, much to my surprise, an Indonesian food store (side note: Dutch first went to Indonesia in the 16th century to look for spices. Indo became a Dutch colony for a while and Indonesian ingredients are widely used in Dutch cooking). The apartment belonged to a traveling, single nurse who was away in Panama when we got there. Her brother met us and he was so nice and kind and probably spoke better English than we did. Come to think of it, most Dutch people we met were more articulate in English than we are. Anyhow, the apartment was lovely. In the middle of the third night of our stay, I start shaking Billy awake. After our stay in Hungary, we decided to go on a whirlwind, 6-week-long trip to 4 countries: Finland, Amsterdam, Germany, and Poland. We could only stay for a few more weeks in the EU, so we had to hit all of the schools we missed in the spring. We packed up our bags, said goodbye to our sweet apartment in Budapest, and boarded a sweet (free-WiFi, free drinks, free food) Norwegian Airlines flight to Helsinki. I had never had any interest in the Scandinavian countries before I had met Billy. Finland, Norway, Denmark...they were all really cold places where people ate jellied fish and had ruddy cheeks. My interest in Finland piqued when I met Billy's mom, Donna. Her dad was 100% Finnish and the little town where she lived, Rockland, MI, is a Finn town. Since having Des and knowing that part of his makeup is Finnish, I became more and more interested in visiting.
Most every listing we saw for Helsinki had advertised that it had a sauna in the building. The two listings we ended up picking (because of price concerns) did not. Maybe my experience in Helsinki would have been better if I was able to soak up the heat in a sauna, but I couldn't do it anyway since I was about 8 weeks pregnant at the time. Mother Nature knows just how shitty it is to be pregnant for 9 months. She knows what it feels like to have lower back pain so intense that sitting down is painful. She knows what it feels like to have insane joint pain because your ligaments are constantly stretching. She knows what it feels like to have uncontrollable stomach itching because you're stomach skin is growing...growing...growing. She knows our pain, our struggles. This is why, in all of her omniscience, she gave us one beautiful thing: thick, healthy, shiny hair. And then we give birth and there's this crazy, beautiful, wonderful little person who is all yours and you feel so lucky to be a mom and and you radiate love and peace and goodwill to all your fellow men ... Then, 2 weeks later, in the throes of mild post-partum depression, when you're still sore down there, leaking breastmilk everywhere, and suffering from chronic exhaustion, your hair starts falling out. Like, horror movie, girl-turning-into-a-bald-blood-sucking-creature falling out. Maybe 50 hairs falling out at a time. You shed hair, like a blood trail, across the floor wherever you walk. Hair on the toilet seat, hair in your food, hair in your mouth, hair on the baby. It's a freaking nightmare. So, now I have to come up with different ways to part my hair to hide my TWO hideous bald spots/receding hairline. As if I didn't have enough going on post pregnancy. Plan to see a lot of cute, "boho" style head wraps in the near future.
Or maybe I'll just say, "fuck it," and proudly wear my bald badge of honor. I was always a good colorer. I stayed inside the lines, I used the "right" colors for the right things, I was a master at making color gradients, and my bold-to-light transitions were flawless. I was also 7 when I reached my peak. After that, my drawings didn't get substantially better. Maybe that's when they stopped offering art class in schools. By the time I was able to take art again in high school, I fully believed that I had no artistic skill whatsoever.
Over the years, I made some friends who were really good artists: amazing sculptors, painters, and photographers. I was always intrigued, and a little bit jealous, that they could create something so beautiful from the gray folds inside their head. I could only copy and regurgitate things...and very poorly at that. So, for decades, I just pushed aside the thought that I could create any kind of art. One of the reasons I married my husband is because he is always so supportive of me and my crazy ideas. "Hey Bill, I wanna start a website that helps women microfinance their businesses." "Sure, honey. How can I help?" "Hey Bill, I think I want to be a certified yoga teacher." "Sure, baby. Let's look up teacher trainings together." So, when I approached him and asked him what he thought of me taking art classes, he fully supported it. He helped me look for classes in Budapest and we found one on Facebook. It was an art studio where one can go and take art classes, no matter what their level. I contacted the teacher, Agnes Szikra, and scheduled a weekly time to go. The sessions were around 2 hours each and were located located in Buda, on the other side of the river from Pest. Billy, Des, and I would all take the tram over there and, while I was in class, bilssfully shading and concentrating and meditating, Des and Bill would go to the park. Each session, I would walk in to the room, my little wooden box that held all of my pencils and special gummy eraser in hand, eagerly excited to finish my piece or start a new one. I have never before been so excited to draw boxes, wheels, and cups. |
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March 2016
AuthorJust a girl living her dream: traveling this amazing world with her husband and her two awesome sons. Categories
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