Living overseas and having kids can be a little different, especially when you are half a world away, in a country that doesn’t speak English and family are nowhere to be seen.

In 2003 and again in 2005 my wife and I went through the birthing process, the following are two short excerpts highlighting the key experiences and learnings.

Birth one: Eleanor, Country: Finland

Leading up to and after the birth of Eleanor we were living in Russia (Moscow), but decided that we didn't feel too comfortable putting our trust in the Russian health system, thus we embarked on a Nordic adventure arriving in Finland three weeks before the due date.

With birthing arrangements made in advance (doctor, hospital, and accommodation) we left Moscow naively feeling pretty relaxed. Shortly after arriving we met a Finnish doctor, who after spending 10 minutes with us declared my wife in excellent health and said "If I am needed the hospital will call" and sent us on our way. The weeks past and we spent many hours walking the streets of Helsinki waiting for Eleanor.

Birth day, waters broke in the morning and were stained with meconium (arghh). We leapt in a taxi (during the trip to the hospital I kept wondering if the embryonic fluid would leak all over the taxi and we would be charged for 'soiling' it – weird the things you worry about) and 20 minutes later arrived in a sparkling clean hospital and were quickly whisked into a large private birthing room (we were paying customers). The nurse assigned to us spoke excellent English, and helped us get settled and supplied with N20. 8 hours later after a pretty rough birth Eleanor arrived and didn't breathe (ARGHHHHH). She was whisked away, immediately set to work by the doctors, and taken to ICU... we were told nothing for 30 minutes... After calming my wife as much as possible I headed to ICU and found Eleanor happily lying under a heat lamp taking in her surroundings.

2 days later she was allowed to stay with us in our hospital room, and after 2 more days we decamped and headed back to our rented apartment.

Another challenge was passports and entry visa!!! I won't bore you with the details other than to say Eleanor's ICU picture at 20 hours old is in her passport, and we managed to get into Russia 4 days after birth.

Learning:
Have a least one family member for support, no matter what! Having to deal with the stress of a baby in ICU, organising passports, visa's and travel documents alone sucks.

Birth two: Alexander, Country: Russia

The key contrast we found from the Euro-Finnish approach was the very hands on nature of the Russian health system even thought we went private (USD 5000 arghhh). My wife experienced more needles, jabs and pills in the month leading up to birth than she had in the previous 29 years of life. The Russian approach of treating anything that wasn't exactly as it should be ended up driving my wife mad, compound by the fact that every time she refused/declined a treatment they asked her to sign a waiver releasing the clinic from any liability. To say they clinic hadn’t endeared itself to us by the time birth came around was a gross understatement.

Anyway once Catherine's waters broke and the ambulance arrived (part of the $5k package) everything went incredibly smoothly. Doctors were great, although there were a lot of them – Anaesthetist + assistant, Paediatrician + assistant, Obstetrician + 2 assistants – plus my wife our Russian friend and myself, and then Alex arrived. Lucky for us the room was large and the birthing table state of art.

My wife and Alex hung out in a large suite, they even came and did my wife’s hair, nails and make up on the day she was due to leave.

Learning:
Have a least one family member for support, no matter what! And if that isn’t possible a really good friend.

Having babies is hard enough, doing it overseas and without family close by is crazy!

Hamish

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