Giving Birth in a Public Hospital in Peru during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Going with the flow makes all the difference
An impending tsunami of contractions
April 11th, 2020. Peru has been under a strict lockdown for about 4 weeks, and I’m leaving the house for the first time in 6 weeks. Seems extreme, but if you’re pregnant and there’s a new virus going around, you play it safe. The contractions must have been going on all day, but they merged with some dodgy digestive problems I’d been having throughout my third term. So it wasn’t until my waters broke at just before 9pm when I realised I was most definitely in labour. Very much so. I was hurled into a vortex of contractions that grew stronger and more frequent with lighting speed, and it was very hard to concentrate on packing my bag for the hospital.
We must have left the house at around 9.45pm, and by I was keeping my brain busy by trying to draw up a mental roadmap of Lima and the route from my neighborhood to the center of Lima to see if there were any other hospitals on the way — in case it would take too long to get to the maternity hospital. This was my second pregnancy and I knew that this baby was incredibly close to entering this world, and I was nervous. My husband, my brother-in-law and myself were definitely not equipped to safely receive a new life inside this car.
Curfew started at 8pm and private vehicles weren’t allowed after that (unless it was an emergency, like this was) so the streets were deserted. My brother-in-law was at the wheel, seemingly serene, and my husband, pretending to be calm, chatting about this-that-and-the-other, while I was in the back seat, somehow feigning relative tranquility and deciding not to forgo asking about any hospitals on the way, so as not to break our fragile bubble of calmness. It was getting harder to keep that façade up as my eyes were glued to the green neon numbers of the digital clock that told me I was having contractions every 2 minutes.
Fortunately, we were only pulled over at one roadblock on the way to the hospital, and after a quick look at my bulging belly along with agonizing face, the soldier let us through without asking further questions. Since there was zero traffic, we got to the public maternity hospital la Maternidad de Lima at 10.15pm. After a stupid squabble with my husband because I couldn’t remember where I had put my face mask — strictly required and doubly important at that moment because there were a lot of people milling around outside the hospital — we made our way to the entrance.
The hardest moment of all had arrived: Covid-19 restrictions meant my husband wasn’t allowed in to attend the delivery. He wouldn’t be there to hold my hand, bring me water. He would miss out on the moment our son would join us on this side of my skin. When we found out, this news had prompted a few bitter tears, but we had no choice to accept this restriction.
So now it was time for him to stay on the other side of the large metal gate, and join the crowd of weary-looking face of mostly men standing around, and the last thing he said to me wasn’t “I love you”, “you can do this”, “you’ll be fine”. His words were exactly the same as the security guard’s words as I went through the gate: “Please pull your mask over your nose”.
Navigating the rapids of labour
Once inside, I was directed towards a make-shift tent that had been set up in an outdoor patio. Holding nothing else but my ID card, hospital medical record, and a thermometer, I presented myself there and a nurse started asking me for my name, address, etc. She was impatient when I didn’t answer immediately because I was quite clearly having a contraction, yet didn’t seem to speed up the rest of whatever this process was for because of my condition. (At the time I didn’t realise this tent had been set up to screen potential coronavirus cases.)
“Have a seat over there and put the thermometer under your armpit”. I was huffing and puffing, literally feeling ready to push that very second, but everyone else around me didn’t seem to share my urgency. Another nurse called me over to weigh me, and she was also apparently unaware of my baby’s ETA, so I managed to squeeze out the words: “Mi bebe ya está muy abajo, señorita.” (My baby is already quite low down, miss.) Too much European politeness meant my words yielded little effect.
Less than a minute later, another massive contraction washed away all inclinations to stay polite and I think I almost grabbed the next nurse-like person nearby and screamed: “Mi bebe ya va a nacer ahora!” (My baby is going to be born right now!) Experience had her ask the best screening question ever (is this your first baby?) and I screamed my answer (no!! Segundo bebe!!). That was the magic word because she conjured up a wheelchair from out of nowhere, sat me down in it and speedily wheeled me through to the next area.
Finally, the jetski I had been waiting for had arrived. I certainly couldn’t and wasn’t trying to be quiet and polite anymore, and the nurse scolded me for “being so escandalosa, and look at how many señoras I had you skip that were waiting their turn calmly”. More sensitive souls might have felt that was a very rude thing to say, but I was so relieved I was finally being attended, that I didn’t care. Also, those kinds of comments pretty much sum up the personality of a good chunk of the staff at this hospital: kind of like your most old-fashioned and opinionated great-auntie whose comments you’ve started to shrug off about three decades ago.
Inside the screening room, I had to take off my trousers and underwear because an obstetrician would come soon. The tsunami just kept doing its thing and I was still afraid the baby would be born right here, which wasn’t a delivery room at all, and “Captain Nurse Saviour” reminded me of that several times while we waited for the doctor. When he arrived, he took a quick, clinical look and dryly said two words: está completa.
From that point on, the staff was finally turned on the turbo engine that my body had been clamouring. I was ordered to climb onto a gurney and started the shortest yet eternal journey ever to the delivery rooms. The nurses wheeling me over there also kept yelled the unforgivingly direct instructions I so so badly needed at that moment: “Cruce las piernas señora! No puje!” (Cross your legs! Don’t push!)
Minutes later in the delivery room the tough-as-nails obstetrician immediately started ordering me around like a 1930s head teacher. She could see the baby’s head and I said I should push immediately. I somehow remembered a new-age breathing technique from a hypnobirthing doula online and tried to use that, but my obstetrician quickly burst my bubble by shouting: “Qué está haciendo señora?! Puje como si estuviera defecando! Usted ya es mamá, usted ya sabe!” (What are you doing? Push as if you were doing a number 2! You’re already a mother, you already know how to do this!) I decided to fire my distant Youtube doula and follow my current obstetrician’s instructions instead, and one incredible push later, my son arrived at the shores of this world.
Two hours after my waters had broken, forty-five minutes after setting foot in that blue tent in the hospital patio, my healthy baby was wrapped into a hospital towel and immediately placed on my chest. I wanted to absorb all of his features with my soul through eyes, but it was so hard to see him at that angle past my face mask.. But whether I could see much of him or not, he was here, breathing, moving, alive and well, and so was I.
Calmer, though slightly muddy waters
A little while later they took him to another room to weigh him and run some standard tests, but I felt in my heart, flesh and bones that he was fine and I’d hold him again soon enough. One of the downsides of this hospital is that information about what’s happening can be a bit, hmm, scarce. My husband managed to send up a bag of my belongings, but when I looked at it, he had only sent half of the stuff I had packed in the hospital bag, one of the items missing being my mobile phone. My heart sunk because I didn’t even know if he knew our baby had been born already. And if he didn’t know, and I didn’t have my phone, how would I be able to tell both our Dutch and Peruvian sides of the family? I then realised I didn’t know his mobile phone number by heart, so I couldn’t even borrow someone else’s phone to try and talk to him.
On top of this mundane but very real worry, several hours went past without the nurses bringing me my baby back, without information. I used the circular movements of rubbing my now-empty-womb to prevent blood clots to help me make a mental and spiritual effort to keep calm and bathe myself with gratitude and trust and just keep repeating: Baby is fine, so are you, and I’m sure my husband knows or feels this. Patience, my love. You can only let the river runs its course.
At around 3am I was wheeled over to the maternity ward, where the twilight allowed me to see the other mothers resting or tending to their babies. Since it was the second time I had given birth here, I knew the drill and surroundings, and it all felt familiar. Even so, it still seemed to take an eternity until they brought my son over to me, and an emotional part of me started to falter and worry that something was wrong after all. Finally, at around 6am, a nurse entered the ward with her cart full of newborns, and I knew he was one of them. The moment I held him again, all the tiredness, sweat and worries washed away and we dived head first into the timeless pool of mother-and-newborn-son love.
As my first morning as a mother-of-two progressed, I started to connect with the mothers in the beds near me, sharing our birth stories, commenting on the food and lending each other supplies like nappies and toilet paper, all the while trying to practice social distancing and keeping that mandatory face mask on as much as possible. The brief, but intense camaraderie that bubbles up in this situation is priceless: I couldn’t imagine being in a room for 36 hours mostly alone with baby, also because I was incredibly short on supplies and had to borrow all sorts of things from the other mothers that were way better stocked!
Side-note: For me as a European to give birth in this public hospital is baffling to a certain sector of society. But this Dutch lady is a tough cookie that trusts the professional staff at this hospital. Also, my Peruvian husband and I could barely afford giving birth at a private clinic. Worse still, those places also often try and scare you into an unnecessary C-section so they can charge you three times as much, and that would have been my true nightmare. Much more than having to deal with a bit of tedious bureaucracy and somewhat blunt and moody staff of this public hospital.
Sadly, no visits were allowed on the first day after the birth, but I managed to get through to my husband that day and I would probably be allowed to go home the day after. That second night never seemed to end. I hadn’t slept at all the night of the birth and had hardly even had a nap since then. Many of the newborns on the ward of about 10 women wouldn’t stop crying and they kept me up more than my own baby.
I felt dirty and hungry, and tried to push time with my mental strength so the morning would arrive more quickly. I had to remind myself: don’t try and push the river. I wanted the sun to rise and bring the day where my husband would come and meet his son, and we’d go home to a clean house with endless supplies of nappies, comfort food and clean clothes for both of us. It would be a cruise ship experience after having been adrift at sea. But every time these muddy waters of frustration would come flowing in, I’d throw up a dam of gratitude, and serenity would once again reign my maternal waters.
The drops that were seconds became pools and soon a lake: and so I got through the night, and a long morning also came to an end. My husband arrived, eyes welling up as he drank in the embrace of his son, and I said goodbye to my temporary mum tribe as we went home to start the new journey as a family of four.
No Covid-19 droplets anywhere then?
It might seem like I’ve forgotten to elaborate on the role the pandemic played in this story, but that isn’t the case. It simply doesn’t stand out as the main memory of the whole experience. As a family, we have been — and seven months later, continue to be — very careful when navigating the waves of this pandemic because our colourful Peruvian household is full of family members in high-risk categories.
We’ve managed to strike a beautiful balance between being wary of the virus and careful about our decisions, while not giving into the emotional storms of irrational fear or anxiety. Our hearts are brimming with gratitude for the way our son entered this world — such a quick, uncomplicated delivery, albeit in a hospital lacking modernity and some basic supplies. We could still be gathering buckets of tears about the fact that my husband wasn’t present at the birth, but the reality is that our son (and his toddler sister, of course) have brightened the never-ending lockdown so much that tears just vaporise that very instant.
Thanking the wise waters of gratitude that continue to teaching us to be humble, one drop at a time.