Making a Baby in Honduras

I haven´t written in a while as life has been busy with moving, work, and well, being pregnant.  The weather has been getting hotter and hotter as we move into Honduras´ “summer”, and I am feeling more like an overheated sweaty incubator than a normal human being.

Augusto and I have settled into our new place, a two level duplex with a lot more space (and a lot more surface area to clean), and have been slowly putting the house together.  January was a miserable month in which I promptly got sick the day we moved to the new house and stayed ill with a brutal case of bronchitis for the next 3 weeks, leaving poor Augusto to do most of the work in cleaning and painting the old apartment and unpacking in the new place. Just as I started to feel better, Augusto succumbed, but luckily his immune system battled the bug a lot better than I did.  Suffice it to say, our diet was mostly chicken soup for the month of January.

I have started taking prenatal classes at the public hospital where I am planning on giving birth. The chosen method of teaching here seems to be a combination of scolding and the sharing of old wives tales. 

Today for example, we all had to tell the nurse how much we weighed.  Most of us got scolded for weighing too much, and when one plump young lady to be declared her weight to be lower than what the nurse thought she weighed, she took her and weighed her in front of the group and loudly declared the (higher) number in triumph to the rest of the group.  Once that mortifying experience was over, we then got scolded about a) not drinking enough water,  b) wearing our pants too tight,  c) eating too much spicy food (that was aimed directly at me) ,  d) touching our baby bumps too much –apparently it stimulates the uterus and leads to early labour, information which I am taking with a lot of salt, and finally e) allowing our babies to become too big  - better a 5 or 6 lb baby than a large baby, according to the nurse, it’s easier to birth a small baby  (I have a whole handful of grains of salt by this point).

Needless to say, the beliefs and practices here in Honduras are quite different than those of Canada, and I am finding myself biting my tongue a lot at the advice I am receiving from not just the nurses, but from well-meaning coworkers and friends as well.  

As I am giving birth in a public hospital, I really don’t have any freedom in choosing how I want to give birth – the rule is, no one comes in with me to the birthing room, and birthing always happens on my back.  I actually sat and read the entire birthing policies document for Honduras, and was pleased by what I read in the document, but apparently those policies don´t actually get followed, as in the document it said women can be accompanied by a family member, and can choose the position they give birth in.  I am trying hard to let go of my Canadian viewpoint when it comes to my labour and delivery, as the more I think of how little control I will have, the more nervous I get.  I take comfort in the fact that Honduras has twice the birth rate of Canada, so they must know what they´re doing when it comes to birthing babies.

The great thing is, the hospital is literally two blocks away from our house, so I am thinking of walking to the hospital when the time comes – albeit two blocks while in labour may be a lot more than I bargained for.

I can´t believe I am so close to the end of this pregnancy – it has flown by, but at the same time, it´s been an eternity.  I had no idea how many changes a body goes through during this period, and it’s been a whole new learning experience.  For example, some interesting fun facts:

At this point, I literally have 50% more blood flowing through my body than a non-pregnant person.

The amount of fluid in my body has affected my vision – my focal point has changed due to the excess fluid, so my prescription glasses now give me headaches.  I have managed to do without glasses for the past few months, because I want to wait to get a regular body back before checking my prescription again.

My levels of hormones have changed the way I smell – we all have a smell that we don´t notice because we´ve always smelled the same.  Well, now I smell different, even to me, and it´s weirding me out, because I don’t recognize myself sometimes.

My joints and articulations are all stretching and becoming loosy goosy in preparation for birth – this makes me really clumsy and prone to silly accidents.  I twisted my ankle the other day while walking, and luckily it only took a few days to recover from, but it reminded me to be extra careful.

My abdominal muscles have separated to make room for the baby, which causes a weird cone shape as my insides squeeze through the middle when I flex my abs.  Hopefully this separation heals on its own after birth.

Anyways, this is all probably too much information for those of you who are slightly squeamish, so I’ll leave it at that, even though I  could go on for quite a bit more.

Next month is baby month! Eeeek!