[Diary of an expat bride] Tied with a red bow

“We’ll have to do the cesarean tomorrow, at the latest,” he said to me. I guess I wasn’t surprised that our dream of having a natural birth would eventually be foiled. My recent bout with severe food poisoning had made it virtually impossible. Even though I knew this, I still fought back tears. My doctor knew how much I had wanted a natural birth and tried his best to comfort me. “Today I will take you to meet the anesthesiologist and the pediatrician who will attend your birth,” he promised. That is one of the advantages of a scheduled C-section. My husband made some quick calls to the airline company he works for and managed to negotiate a 10-day paternity leave. Reason number two why this C-section may have been best for us, at least my husband wouldn’t be in flight if I would go into labor.

We met the anesthesiologist while he had a break in between surgeries. He told me that we should consider being put all the way under general anesthesia for the surgery. This upset me, and I asked why I couldn’t have a spinal done so that I could be awake and see my baby right away. This is a common procedure in my home country of the US. The reasons he gave me were at first vague. When I pressed further and asked why it would be medically necessary for me to be out for the procedure, he offered me the main, shocking reason. “Turkish women can’t handle pain, that’s why they prefer to be put under anesthesia all the way.” I was dumbfounded. My shock caused me to blurt out the first thing that came to mind:

“Have you ever had your private areas waxed?” There was about a 10-second silence as both my husband and the doctor stared at me with mouths agape. Then the doctor laughed uncontrollably as he understood my point. Those delicate Turkish women he referred to wax their intimate areas regularly, a procedure most women will relate as pretty painful. Maybe since it is an aesthetic procedure, Turkish women don’t complain about it much. I personally couldn’t walk properly for a week after I accompanied friends to their beauty salon to be waxed. Now, I encouraged the doctor to have the same treatment before he recommend general anesthesia based on this reasoning. “I’ll give you your spinal,” he promised, laughing as he went off to his next surgery.

A spinal is similar to an epidural, in that it would numb me from the chest down, but I would still be awake and alert during the operation. If I wasn’t able to receive a spinal due to medical reasons, fine, but I couldn’t accept his reasoning. Childbirth will be painful, no matter which alternatives a woman seeks. I wanted to be able to see my son immediately after he was born and be an active participant in my birth. Waking up an hour later, groggy and perhaps ill, was not the way I wanted to be unless it was an emergency. I already had given up on a natural birth but wanted to hold firm to some of my expectations, things that I felt the hospital could reasonably offer me.

Can and I went home and re-packed our bags. This time, I added the frilly nightgowns (gecelik) and robes that I had purchased on a recent trip to Bursa. There, my friend’s mother had taken me to a nice shop near the Covered Bazaar to buy some nice sets for my hospital stay. Despite the fact that we requested that nobody visit us while in the hospital, I knew that lots of people would come anyways. So, we got some nice, long, nightdresses that would also be easy for me to nurse in. The store was full of other pregnant women and their mothers shopping for the same items. We even got slippers to match. I had never spent so much time contemplating which nightgown to wear. I hadn’t even splurged on wedding or honeymoon lingerie, other details taking more importance. It was fun being in that small space with a lot of pregnant Turkish women, trying on pajamas over our big bellies. “Have you got your red bow?” one asked me.

I looked at my friend’s mom quizzically. She explained that all Turkish women wear a red bow in their hair after they give birth for luck. We added a headband with a red bow on it to my pile of purchases. Another concerned matron asked if I had a small pillow for people to pin the gold coins on. That too was added to our pile. Like weddings, Turks tend to give gold coins as gifts when a baby is born. Fully realizing how clueless I was about the small details, my friend’s mom next marched me over to a nearby shop that sold natural herbs and teas (aktar) to purchase postpartum tea, or lohusa çay. This is sold in red blocks, and is mainly derived from cloves. They supposedly increase a new mother’s milk supply. The tea is brewed and served at room temperature, garnished with almonds or other nuts, and offered to guests at the hospital as well. We then went to another part of the bazaar where we picked up small, plastic baby bottles that we would fill with sugared almonds, tie with a blue bow and give to guests as a kind of party favor.

Now, the night before our C-section, Can surveyed all of the bags we would be taking to the hospital. He wanted to leave all of the favors at home, still thinking that people would respect our wishes and not visit us at the hospital. Although I am not Turkish, I knew better. People were going to come whether we wanted them to or not. It was best to be prepared. Seeing my red bow, he became hysterical. “You look like Minnie Mouse!” he said when I modeled it for him. Thankfully I didn’t only rely on him to help me navigate Turkish culture and customs, as he was pretty clueless. Bonding with other pregnant women at a store selling nightgowns had been far more informative and productive.