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The very subjective experiences of Martin the Dad, continued |
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| The yuezi starts here | Picking up from the previous page's cliffhanger: the "yuezi". What exactly is this? While the experienced Old Chinahand might have overheard the word before, the average Western European will probably be at a loss. "Zuo yuezi", doing the month, is the period of post-natal maternal solitary confinement customary for the Chinese woman. It is the usually four weeks (sometimes more) of time that are to help the young mother adapt to the new situation, recover from the strenuous and exhausting time of pregnancy and birth and regain strength for the hardships ahead. I guess all cultures have something similar, even the Germans do have the so-called "Wochenbett" during which the mother is supposed to take it easy. Meaning, not carrying more than 10 kilos of shopping bags in each hand. | |
| The Chinese "yuezi", however, has some specialties to it: | ||
| The rules |
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| The punishment | And as with every good rule, there's the trouble you will get into if you don't follow it: If not adhering to the no-bath / no-shower rule or the hat-on-your-head rule, for example, the young mother will be befallen by severe migraine at an older (yet unspecified) age. This is a pretty effective threat, because a) who wants to have migraine and b) who could exclude the possibility that it's all true if there's no immediate feedback but one has to wait for another 20 years to find out? Maybe better to take it serious after all... | |
| Below this cover of irony, I do in fact not lack understanding for these guidelines. If you look at the hygenic conditions 100 or even 50 years ago, taking a bath in an unheated home with water that most probably contained a lot of germs does not seem such a good idea. It suddenly does make some sense to rather be smelly for a while than catch a serious infection. However, transferring these rules to modern (urban!) China, it all seems a bit exaggerated. | ||
| Dr. Tian of the Fuchan Hospital - and this is where we come back to the main story - thought so, too: "It might have made sense many years ago, but now these rules are not so important anymore." According to her experience, most young women did not adhere very strictly, if at all, to the tradition. I had already made some tentative inquiries as to the possible shortening of the no-shower/no-teeth-brush period, and the best wife of all had basically agreed that four weeks without brushing her teeth would definitely be too long. For both of us. | ||
| Here he is | So there we were in our hospital room with our newborn Sven. Together with the nurses I had moved Michelle from the stretcher onto her bed. She still had the anesthetics infusion attached to her lower back and did thus not feel much pain. She was hooked up to a machine monitoring her vitals, a true Monthy Python-esque "machine that goes ping" - it kept losing the signal from one of the electrodes and would go "ping" every other minute. Sven was not disturbed by this, though. He had been placed on his mothers breast and did a pretty good job hooking himself up to his future source of nutrition. Even though there would be no milk he kept sucking, thus providing stimulus for Michelle's milk production to start. We both watched him, overwhelmed by the realization that the little creature we had been expecting for such a long time now all of a sudden was with us in this world. Waiting for us to take care of him. | |
| Maintenance and after-birth service | I have to admit that I was quite grateful that the nurses did most of the work at the beginning. Even though Sven did not exactly look frail (4 kilos and a miniature Sumo wrestlers stature!), I was still a little bit hesitant to handle him. But that reluctance quickly faded when I saw how the nurses changed his nappies, lifted him up, carried him etc. Although small, he didn't fall apart when being "serviced". So soon I participated in the regular "pit stops" or even did them on my own when the nurses were too busy. | |
| Everything's connected. | At that stage, the main two reasons for Sven being unhappy were: hunger or wet nappies. Because Michelle's milk had not yet started to flow, we "fooled" Sven by letting him suck her breast and at the same time injecting some ready-made milk into his mouth through a very thin tube. He didn't notice, or if he did, he didn't mind. He ate until he was full and then went to sleep. Well, not exactly, because unfortunately in babies the reflex to defecate is somehow connected to the sucking reflex that helps them get their meals. Meaning, basically, that when the baby is full, the diaper usually is, too. So before going to sleep there's some cleaning to be done. | |
| INTERLUDE... | ||
| How does a Chinese hospital work? | Basically, in a Chinese hospital the single patient will find it difficult to survive on his own. This starts with the fact that one has to stand in line (or jump it) and buy an "admission ticket" before seeing a doctor. And, by the way, please decide which kind of illness needs to be treated, because if you buy the ticket for the wrong department (say, you broke a leg but accidentally bought the ticket for the obstetrical department): Please come back and start again. After an initial diagnosis, the doctor might ask you to get some additional exams, please go to the west wing third floor room 309 to get an X-Ray but make sure you pay the fees in advance in the east wing, basement, second door left of the elevator. Then come back. If you need an infusion, the doctor might ask you to buy it in the pharmacy integrated into the hospital and then come back. Strangely enough, the prices in the hospital pharmacy tend to be quite a bit higher than in the average pharmacy. Be embraced, market economy! There is some potential for streamlining the procedures and, needless to say, if you wish to go to the hospital better be in good health or bring some relatives who will do the running-around for you. | |
| ...END OF INTERLUDE | ||
| Multi-tasking | Theoretically, the visiting hours of the 7th floor ward are from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. but because Michelle had just had a Cesarean section and needed more attention and help than the nurses would usually offer, the ward's "guard dog", as I called her not very respectfully, allowed me to come earlier and leave later. She made sure that no relatives or friends entered the ward outside the visiting hours, and did so very rigorously. Chinese Marines Special Training, again... After luckily being allowed inside, I helped Michelle get up and walk around a bit, ordered some food in the restaurant on 13th floor (might have been Chicken Soup, if I recall correctly;-), sometimes changed Sven's nappies, ate the leftover Chicken Soup (hoping I would not start to produce milk, too!) and tried to be helpful in a general way. In the evening, I had to leave the hospital again. The next morning, I ran to the office, tried to manage at least the most urgent issues and then raced to the hospital to be together with mother and child. And thus were the following days. It was all a bit stressful - but at least I got to sleep at night. Which is more than I could say of Michelle. The sound of an infant crying is not easily ignored, even if one tries to. And as there were two babies in the room working in shifts, time for sleep was pretty rare. | |
| The four days until Michelle was released from hospital were tiresome for all of us and filled with learning of new things. Michelle's general condition improved and she also started to produce milk. We did no longer have to fool little Sven with ready-made milk, he could finally drink the "real thing". | ||
| Coming home | The day we left the hospital was clear with blue sky but windy and quite chilly. I went to the hospital early together with Michelle's father to pack all her things and go through the release procedures, which took about 1.5 hours. We wrapped Sven in his pink "imperial gown" with the long sleeves, put a cap on his head and then wrapped Michelle's blue fleece around him against the wind. In the taxi Sven quickly fell asleep on the way. Finally, we were home again! | |
| Already forgot the contents of the previous page? Click here to go back. | To be continued... |