As a form of reflection I am writing about my pregnancy and birth. This post is on my pregnancy. I share this here because I like how this blog has become a document to record our year in preparation for saying goodbye to being just the two of us in Japan to being a family in Japan. I look forward to sharing it with Parker one day!
Lesson: you can try to plan and prepare for a pregnancy
but it will happen when it happens
Todd and I decided to start trying to get pregnant in the
spring of 2010. We had a grand
plan that I’d be pregnant by July and give birth by April 2011. Just in time to take maternity leave
and enjoy the summer off with our new baby. Well the summer of 2010 came and went and we weren’t
pregnant.
At that time I started facing my fears that I could never
get pregnant and wondered what was wrong with me or us. Todd got tested and all was
normal. I started tracking my
cycle and thought too much about the whole affair. After awhile we just
resigned to what will be will be and started making plans for the 2011-2012
school year. Todd was tired of his
teaching job and I had an itch to travel.
Todd had always wanted to spend time exploring Japan so we decided to
apply for the JET program. I
interviewed for a position and was hired.
We started making preparations to move our lives to Japan for a year and
left at the end of July. Our focus
was shifted away from starting a family.
Instead we were starting a completely different adventure together.
At the end of July 2011, I flew to Japan with other JET
program participants and Todd met me in Hachinohe about 10 days later. We think we conceived on his first
night in Hachinohe, August 5th!
Nothing like missing each other to inspire baby making.
Well by the middle of September it was clear that Japan
wasn’t going to be only about the traveling and learning we’d do together. We were pregnant, in Japan, an ocean
away from family, friends and support.
Not to mention our less than basic Japanese language skills to communicate
and advocate for ourselves.
Luckily, through JET we were plugged into a network of English speaking
foreigners that were pretty proficient in Japanese and familiar with
Hachinohe. After missing my period
and taking a home pregnancy test I knew I had to find a doctor to confirm my
pregnancy. I had been getting to
know a few women I worked with. We attended a Japanese dance class
together. I gathered up my courage
and asked a very new friend, Alyssa (fluent Japanese speaker) to accompany me
to the doctor to be tested. At the
doctor, I was examined internally with an ultrasound and given our first baby
picture. We were pregnant
indeed! Now our focus was on
getting through the first 12 weeks and finding a doctor in Hachinohe.
Lesson: a pregnancy in a foreign country means
flexibility, learning to give up control, and lots of ultrasounds (if that
country is Japan)
By this stage in my life I had already thought about what my
ideal pregnancy and birth experience would be. I would find a nice birthing
clinic with a midwife and doula to support me. During my pregnancy, I would
exercise regularly, including lots of swimming. I would give birth naturally, maybe even try a water
birth. Well by the 10th
week of my pregnancy I realized that I was going to have to adopt an attitude
of flexibility when it came to my ideal pregnancy and birth if we were going to
stick it out in Japan. (There were
many moments, especially in the first and last weeks where I wanted to give up
staying in Japan and move home!)
The most major obstacle to advocating for what I wanted was
the language. I am working with a
VERY basic level Japanese. I had
to learn to give over control to a third party to translate everything the
doctor and nurses were saying to me.
Eventually, I learned to trust Alyssa and am confident that she
advocated for us to the best of her ability. Our trust and friendship evolved in nine months and she
ended up being there for our entire labor, birth and stay at the clinic. Alyssa has been such a blessing in our
lives!
My first lessons in flexibility came when I realized in
Japan pregnant women are treated like they are fragile and expected to do very
little. I tried to join a gym to swim at and was informed that because I was
pregnant I would not be allowed a membership. When I asked my doctor to approve swimming during pregnancy
she looked at me with wide eyes and declined. Clearly I would need to find other forms of exercise during
this pregnancy. Around this same
time I expressed interest in giving birth at a midwife clinic and asked my
doctor for recommendations. During
my next visit she informed me that I would not be allowed to birth with a
midwife because it was my first pregnancy. I would have to birth at the city hospital. Fortunately later in my pregnancy the
doctor offered to let me birth at the Hachinohe clinic instead of the
hospital. I am not sure if this is
because my pregnancy was very healthy or if a space had opened up around my due
date. Anyhow I have encountered
several other points during my pregnancy when I have had to remind my self
about being flexible and the greater importance of birthing a healthy
baby.
In Japan, pregnancy is closely monitored through regular
appointments and records kept in your boshi techo (a book that records the
mother and babies health). The
boshi techo is given to pregnant women once their pregnancy is registered with
the city office. In addition to
the boshi techo women are given coupons to subsidize the regular doctor
visits. Officially a healthy
pregnancy is not covered by the social health insurance because it is not seen
as a medical condition. In addition to subsidized doctor visits the birth and
hospital stay is mostly covered by a birth allowance. We only ended up paying around $200 in medical bills during
the pregnancy. We will also
receive a 2/3-salary reimbursement for the time I was off during maternity
leave. In Japan they definitely
have a system that encourages couples to have families and there are financial
incentives to women for taking off to raise your children.
With this social system comes lots of monitoring and just
accepting the Japanese way of doing things. I had a doctor’s appointment every month and then by the end
of pregnancy every week, I think that is pretty standard care everywhere. Although with each doctor visit here
came an ultrasound, their sole way of monitoring the baby aside from the fetal monitor,
urine, blood pressure, and blood tests on me. When we raised concern at the high number of ultrasounds,
the doctor seemed confused and acted as if there was no other way to do
things. We often got this type of
response whenever we tried to question the way things were done or to refuse
certain care. The up side was we
got a picture of our baby every month but we didn’t know how the frequent
ultrasounds were affecting our little guy. Todd’s theory is that it causes premature/early births. Interestingly, Parker came early along
with every other baby we know that has been born in Japan.
Lesson: do your research, know what you want and ask for
it even though you might not get everything
Living in Aomori, far away from the diversity of Tokyo,
there wasn’t an option to hire a doula.
Early in my pregnancy I searched for a method that would help me manage
the pain of labor naturally. I
found hypnobirthing through one of my sister’s contacts. After doing research I found a woman
who offered classes in Tokyo. It
ended up working out for us to have her coach us through skype. The practice of hypnobirth approaches
labor and birth as just what the body does naturally. You learn ways to relax your mind to let your body release
and do it’s job. In preparation I
practiced relaxation and breathing exercises daily. Todd read scripts to help me visualize and deepen my
relaxation. Overall the method
wasn’t easy to implement through my whole labor but it got me from 5 cm to 10
cm dilated the most excruciating part of my labor. A dark room, music playing, laying on my left side hugging a
body pillow, Todd talking me through visualization scripts. At one point we were snorkeling in the
Great Barrier Reef together. Then
next thing I knew I was on the toilet feeling my baby’s head pushing at my
vaginal opening.
I read a lot. I
prepared a birth plan and discussed it with the doctor, midwife and staff. We negotiated parts where they weren’t
able to accommodate my exact requests.
For example waiting to clamp the cord until it stopped pulsating. We
ended up compromising at around 3 min and they ended up clamping the cord at 2
min. I also specified in our plan that we didn’t want any interventions without
medical necessity and the ability to discuss our options before action was
taken. The doctor and midwife
respected my wishes before performing an episiotomy. After letting me try to push my baby out naturally I agreed
to be cut out of concern for Parker and pure exhaustion. I felt like being
informed and knowing what we wanted helped to set us up for the positive birth
experience we had planned.
Lesson: even in Japan, pregnancy doesn’t have to slow you down much
While pregnant I walked, did yoga/pilates, swam (in Aus.),
snorkeled, and hiked. I was doing yoga and walking up until the day before I
went into labor. I enjoyed my
growing belly and tried to embrace each phase staying active and eating
healthy.
When we made plans to move to Japan we wanted to open
ourselves up to traveling in new parts of the world. Fortunately, even with baby on the way we stuck to our
travel plans. We got to take big
trips to Hokkaido, Kyoto and Australia/New Zealand. We also did a lot of small trips around Aomori. We sufficiently fulfilled our baby moon
travel bug. But something tells me
our little bundle won’t slow us down too much.
In less than 3 months we say goodbye to Japan and hello to
Seattle! I feel ready to leave but I am thankful for the experiences we’ve had
here. There will always be a
special place in our hearts for Hachinohe, the clinic, doctor Wada sensei,
midwife Sato san, nurses and Alyssa who helped us bring our beautiful son
Parker into this world.
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