My Turkish conversation friend, Sibel, had her first baby yesterday here in Austin. Wonderful & exciting news to be a new mom and she is already so in love her little one. But today when I went to visit her at Seton, the hard truth of crossing cultures stood out to me and made me hurt for her.
To her disadvantage, she went into labor while her husband was out of town on business (and he won't return till Thurs). She is from Turkey and is still learning English. So he wasn't there to translate what the doctors and nurses were saying or help her make decisions which she only barely understood. I simply cannot imagine having to go through all that labor & delivery entails in a second language, with no support system. Can you even imagine having to ask your medical questions, or learn the new in's and out's of motherhood, in Spanish (for most Texans, that would be our equivalent)?
When I turned up today to congratulate her, there was a sign on her door saying "Patient requests no male staff or visitors" (because she was holed up in her room without her headscarf and in her PJs). After greeting me, she told me-- with a deep sadness-- that they couldn't deliver her baby naturally. They had to perform a C-section. And after pushing a little further, I realized that she went into delivery in the middle of the night on Friday and at 4am Saturday, they moved forward with the surgery. She had no one there who could help explain what they were even talking about. While I was visiting, the "lactation consultant" came in to talk to her about breast-feeding. Talk about a difficult conversation to translate or communicate about! Words like "latch on" and explaining the feeding schedule, etc. I know she had so many questions that she could explain right. Sibel had a great Turkish friend there helping to translate (but she was only there for a few hours and then had to leave her with only Turkish speaking friends), but it still was stressful for her. Being Muslim, she also adheres to a specific dietary code. So none of the hospital food would do... instead all her Turkish friends had brought up an entire store-full of Turkish foods that they were sweetly offering to every visitor and staff.
Those things alone make me so sympathetic to foreigners having to endure critical events in a place and language they do not understand. I could tell she was frightened, yet courageous. She was lonely & missing her husband (and her own family not able to come to America for the birth because the US government denied them visas), yet relying on the Turkish community of women who were rallying to her rescue the best they knew how. What an experience! So challenging for her to endure... and for me, a little bit heart-breaking to watch.
(I would post a pic of little Joseph online, but I am not sure if that's culturally ok???)
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