Memories of the Marienkrankenhaus
(Note: The Marienkrankenhaus is the hospital where I gave birth)
I have hemmed and hawed about posting the complete writeup of my delivery experience, and I’ve concluded that it qualifies as too much of a downer for this blog. Spitting it out on paper was a nice way to purge the horrors from my system, and I am imminently grateful that it is already starting to feel like a distant bad dream. Let us summarize by saying that deliveries are much better when your epidural doesn’t go awry; when you don’t have multiple ill-placed holes poked in your spinal column; when you don’t have to lay flat on your back for over a week following delivery due to crushing, immediate headaches the minute your head rises above your waist, when you don’t have to go back to the hospital in an ambulance to have a second uncomfortable and risky procedure tinkering in your spine in order to patch the holes. Yup. Top that off with a dose of c-section (Kaiserschnitt) recovery time and 20 hours of hard labor only partially eased by the epidural, and you get a recipe for BIG OUCH. Good thing that baby was so damn CUTE, or I’d have demanded my money back! Yes, the miseries of delivery are best forgotten quickly, replaced by happy memories of new parenthood.
On the upside, my German improved considerably during my stay at the Krankenhaus (German for “hospital”, although I think it better translates as “House of Great Pain and Really Bad Food”), since the nurses only spoke to me in their native tongue. I quickly became a German pro at those all-important words like “burp”, “diaper change”, and “screaming crying hollering baby”. I also learned about the German dinner tradition: abendbrot (literally: evening bread). You see, Germans take their one “hot meal” of the day (yes, one can only eat ONE hot meal per day – not sure why the temperature restriction, but you don’t mess with this rule) at lunchtime. Dinner is usually abendbrot, which consists of some dry sliced bread with slices of cheese and weird meats on top. Plus some sliced cucumber and cherry tomatoes. And that’s it. Being no great fan of this austere meal plan, I typically would save half my hot lunch or beg Soenke to head over to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) – the only place basically where you could buy decent take-out. He showed up one day with a smoothie and a Turkish doener, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!
An early amusing experience in the hospital was with the nurses. First, I should mention that the hospital is a Catholic hospital. There are nuns and monks that live on the premises. And the church bell is rung VERY loudly and enthusiastically without exception each day at 7am, noon, and 7pm. So when I was in the maternity wing, I noticed that all the nurses’ nametags said “Schwester So-And-So” – schwester being the German word for sister. I contemplated that in wonder – all these pretty young ladies were NUNS ??? Finally I mentioned it to Soenke, who laughed heartily when he told me that in German, the word schwester also means nurse. Go figure.
So back to the upside of delivering in a German hospital: it’s CHEAP! All the bills, in total, can’t be over EUR 5,000. I don’t think you can get your blood pressure taken in an American hospital for less than that! So it makes absolutely no sense that while it costs EUR 5,000 to have a baby (WITH c-section, extra spinal procedure, and over a week in the hospital)….. our neighbors were quoted a range of EUR 6,000 to EUR 11,000 to paint the inside of their 160m2 (about 1,700ft2) house! I say, WHAT?! I mean, a no-brain activity like PAINTING is significantly more costly than CHILDBIRTH? Another thing that makes no sense here. The government regulates the heck out of all costs of professional services, so the educated/trained professionals don’t earn diddly, while the housepainters make a fortune and retire to the Riviera by the age of 30.
Another interesting (while annoying) quirk I learned was that Germans keep their babies VERY HOT. They layer them in clothes and a sort of padded sleep-sack until their little faces are sweaty and red. That drove me crazy. I kept undressing my poor, hot little infant, and the nurses would bundle her right up again when I was snoozing. Then the doctor had the nerve to come in explain that to avoid the hazards of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), among other things we should not keep the room temperature at more than 16-18C (60F-65F). Such a contradiction! And this California girl would freeze to death in a 16C room, thank you very much. I have totally ignored all German tradition with regards to temperature regulation of my infant, and she has thus far survived.
My 2 favorite nurses were Sister Dagmar and Sister Drita. Sister Dagmar was tall, thin, with red-dyed hair that she wore in a topknot, and a very high, small voice. She was always happy and helpful… explaining that fennel tea would help my milk production, while fruit tea would give the baby diaper rash. Mint tea was also a no-no, for reasons I can’t recall. Sister Dagmar entered my eternal good graces on the day my milk first came in. If you have ever had this experience, you will understand. Your, ahem, breasts become engorged to the size of melons (think: Dolly Parton), they experience an alarming increase in temperature, and are painful as heck. So in sashays Sister Dagmar with soft cloths soaked in quark which have been hanging out in the freezer. Quark is this peculiar German substance not unlike yogurt, with more of a sour smell. I would never eat it, but when the good Sister wrapped those cold quarky clothes around my fire-boobs, I wrote her right into my will. It was the best I’d felt since going into labor.
Sister Drita, my other favorite, just radiated happiness and good nature. She thought it was sweet that I kissed my baby all the time (don’t ALL mothers do that?) and she was simply wonderful with Sophie. She looked like a cheery, less-hungry version of Keira Knightly, and always had a smile on her face. That goes a long way when you are sleep deprived and in pain. Thank you, Sister Drita.
Although I never want to go back to the Marienkrankenhaus, I have newfound respect for nurses. These caregivers are like angels, and it takes a special person to desire and fulfill this occupation. I appreciated them tremendously that week, and any fond memories I have of my time in the hospital will center around their various kind, thoughtful acts… and their patience for me and my daily destruction of the German language!
And so with my hospital experience recounted, I will share some recent SOPHIE PHOTOS to keep my mom happy…
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Sophie looks startled to wake up and discover she is exactly 1 month old!:
Kirstan entertains the princess:
Sophie is enraptured by that!
Another bath day in Hamburg:
Sophie loves being chauffeured in mommy’s arms:
A gratuitous shot of my man, on the way to London today:
