Nurses, Moms, and Culture?

The thing about having a baby is that in addition to the getting big and having to buy get the house ready (read: buy bunches of stuff), there is a lot to learn. In addition to books, here in Holland, information evenings are the way a lot of this information is transmitted. Of course, they don’t do many (any) in July or the beginning of August on account of summer vacation and if you’re not Dutch, you don’t think about these things! So, by the time it was time for us to start attending these things, we had to wait six weeks. But we’ve done well and gone to a couple so far. Imagine a room full of a hundred pregnant ladies and their partners. It’s a bit overwhelming.

This week, we attended an information evening at the hospital where our baby will probably be born. The "probably" because there seem to be no absolutes with births, not because of the hospital. One of the interesting things about giving birth in a hospital here is that their policy is to get you home ASAP. If you have a normal birth, that’s usually within two hours of baby being born. They say it’s because you’re so pumped up on adrenaline at that point that going home is easier to manage than after you’ve calmed down, slept a bit, etc.

One pregnant lady asked the nurses giving the presentation for advice about being sent home possibly in the middle of the night with a baby if the baby had problems breast feeding. The answer was a fairly abrupt version of, "Suck it up, you'll be fine, and baby will be fine without food for a night." Needless to say, the mom didn't look too reassured. I could only laugh to myself. What an answer to give a nervous new mom! No alternatives, no suggestions, just a fairly abrupt “stop fussing” and “next question.”

So my question is this: is this a nurse thing or a Dutch thing? I’m tempted to think it’s a nurse thing. After all, these ladies have seen it all. If you’ve been a nurse on a maternity ward for 20 or 25 years, the idea of a healthy mom and baby going home and worrying probably seems pretty silly. You’re healthy! Be happy, go home, enjoy. Any of the problems you run into are minor and can be taken care of later. No danger.

Clearly, this isn’t the way a potential new mom thinks. Of this, I can speak from experience. My latest panic is going to the grocery store for the first time with our baby. Insignificant in the scope of life, I’m sure, but in my mind: huge. More than anything, this is a story of how difficult it can be to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, especially the shoes of someone younger or less experienced than we are. I may teach, but do I really remember what it was like to be a 20 year-old study abroad student? This is something other than empathy or compassion, it’s understanding and responding to another human being’s frame of reference. Hopefully we all know someone who can do this. But learning it… that’s a real challenge!

Customer Service Solutions

I recently wrote a surprisingly popular post about Dutch customer service. One of the most entertaining responses was, "Isn't that an oxymoron?" Perhaps. A follow up seems like a good idea since I have been using one of my favorite solutions lately and it's easy to pass on. Here it is: call the US.

As silly as that sounds, we book most of our international travel through American websites because they're cheaper. Also, calling the airlines in Holland means using those 0900 numbers, at rates of 10-15 cents per minute, and then only during business hours. I can call most 800 numbers in the states, pay 3-5 cents a minute for the international call, and usually get someone on the phone 24/7. Plus there's the added bonus of getting to do business in English, which is always a pleasure. I also feel like they're a bit more informed, but that may be my mistake.

While working on tickets for Christmas (yup, already got those), I called an airline's European number and was told that if I wanted to change my ticket, it would have to be sent to Poland. When I asked if it wasn't possible to do the same thing at Schiphol, she asked me what I was talking about. After I explained that Schiphol is the international airport in Amsterdam, she looked it up and confirmed that their (major international) airline did have a ticket desk there and the mailing to Poland business wasn't necessary. Uh huh. Yup. What a relief.

After living here for four years and having worked quite hard on learning the language and working within the system, I'm finally allowing myself to cheat, work around, and find quick solutions. You can do as much integrating as you want, but getting things done remains complicated, for foreigners and for locals!

Great First Lines

I just read this first line of a book review in the New York Times.

Funny is like pornography. You know it when you see it.

I won't forget it. No idea what the rest of the review says. But I know I'll keep reading!

Patchwork Weekend

Started another sewing project this weekend. This one probably wouldn't have gotten an attempt on the old machine, but now - wow wow wow! The project is a boxkleed cover, or a mini-duvet cover for the playpen. In Holland, a playpen is a box. Usually square, wooden, and given a prominent position in the living room. We've gotten that part down. We got ours second hand and it came with a blue kleed, the kleed being a thick padded blanket that you put in the bottom. I'm not a fan of blue and we don't actually know if we're getting a boy or a girl. But instead of replacing what we have, I decided to try making a cover for it. With a couple, we'll be able to exchange and wash them easily if there are messes. Seems like a great plan so far.

Not content to just trim down a duvet or make a plain cover, I decided it would be a good time to try making my first patchwork project. Already had some green fabric (some of you might recognize a couple patches) and wanted to compliment with yellow. This is my progress so far:


You can see the original beneath my patchwork project. I was worried about all the squares lining up well, but I think this is not too shabby. When we went sewing machine shopping, there was a lot of talk at the Pfaff store about a technology to keep your fabric lined up well, but apparently it's possible without. Instead of trying to plan the squares, I dumped them in a bag, and then pulled and pinned. My mistake (I think - are there any quilters out there?) was pressing the seams in opposite directions when I sewed the strips of blocks together.


It made ironing difficult and you can see the differences from the front (thing fabric). Not a major disaster, though. Good lesson for next time. I'm curious whether it will hold together for washing or if I should be worried about everything unraveling.

Now that the center panel of patches is done, I'm going to add strips to the side to make the front just the right size and cut the back out of one piece. Then just to decide whether it needs to close or not and how to do that - buttons? ties?

On the Sew Again

Yesterday, CRAFT Magazine's blog, courtesy of Google Reader, offered up temptation too good to resist: a tutorial for converting old t-shirts into newborn clothes. Might not sound like something so terribly irresistible to you, but this weekend I replaced oma's broken sewing machine with a brand new little gem that is a joy to work with. I've been sewing off and on for years, but eminent arrival of the little one has me sewing loads. This weekend was the first time I've worked with a machine made after 1980. You can't imagine my surprise and delight!

Since this was my first attempt with the pattern, seriously sewing knits, and a more complicated project with the new machine, I used one of F's old t-shirts. The results are super pleasing. I used a lightly contrasting thread to just give the outfit a bit of color, but that turned out looking quite nice as well, and showing off the stitches, too! Check out the neckline. I used a zig-zag stitch for knits that is actually two stitches on each zig and two on each zag. It gives a great finished look without pulling the fabric.



The other neat stitch was the substitute interlock or as I prefer to call it, the fake-n-lock. It's going to keep hold of those edges for me and look good on the outside all at the same time!



The only disappointment I encountered was realizing that my old t-shirts (mostly kids extra-larges) are too small to turn into these cute little outfits. But F's got a stash I can raid and surely local friends and the thrift store have treasures waiting for me to discover as well. The whole project (including making up the pattern) took a couple of hours, so with a pattern ready, I'm guessing it would only take an hour or so to put another one together. Sizing up the pattern will be my next challenge!

Finnish Surprises

Down the road

Way back in June, I attended a workshop in Maastricht where I learned bunches of stuff and met a group of wonderful people. One of them ended up becoming a last minute house guest. As far as house guests go, this one set a new standard as on his second evening with us he managed to whip up a perfectly amazing dinner: antipasto and "I'm not sure how good this is going to be" delicious asparagus carbonara. We chatted and as these things go, you learn about people. He mentioned that he played in a band and we expressed due enthusiasm.

A couple of weeks later, we got a gorgeous postcard with a "this is where I live" message on the back. I also got an email with a link to the band's myspace page. That's them in the video above. Cool, eh? When someone says a band, the blues is not what I think of. The disclaimer is that this was one of their first gigs, but me - I'm waiting for the Low Lands tour!

Two Wrongs make a Right

First, I'd like to take a moment to mention that it's quite impressive that someone found a way to make dental work (at least the mirror) look sensuous.

You may recall my adventure in Dutch dental math a from a few weeks ago. Well, the problem has been solved in a rather welcome but unexpected way. The new bill arrived last week without the disputed fluoride treatment and also without any strange, unusual, or unexpected codes or charges. In terms of the the fight for consumer rights, it looks like this one was a winner. What a relief. Also nice to report positive news about the Netherlands instead of continuing a recent trend of complaining.

Now, if one of you can get the sun to come out, I'll be quite a happy camper!

Dutch Customer Service

I've been attempting the utterly futile for the last hour or so - taking care of business by phone in the Netherlands on a Friday afternoon. Here's the scoop. Your average business has a phone number, so that's a good thing. However, they are often only available by phone between 9am and 1pm. Or they might be available from 9am until noon and then from 1pm until 4pm. That's rather generous, though. So what happens? At 9am, the phones are jammed and often it is difficult to get through anyway.

Now, four hours a day of answering the phone is a good way to save money and cause ample customer frustration. But there seems to be no reason for stopping there when you can also eliminate one day of availability per week. One organization I need to contact today has the normal 9am - 1pm hours, but of course, not on Wednesdays. It would be far too easy to have a universal day off, so each little office (doctors, dentists, services) gets to choose a different day of the week to not answer the phones. According to the logic, that gives them time to do their administrative work. So, what are they doing with that half day every other day that they are not answering the phones, I'd like to know!

In case you aren't discouraged enough yet about trying to call, many businesses also use 0900 phone numbers. That means you pay 10 eurocents per minute to call them. Be not fooled, my friends, this charge has no relationship at all with how quickly anyone is going to help you. In fact, I've typed this entire post while sitting on hold at just that rate. We're up to 8 minutes now, so this is getting expensive. In our first year of living in the Netherlands, I had the experience of spending over an hour and a half on hold in order to cancel a cable TV service. Amazing stuff, I tell you.

Well - they picked up and were helpful in the end. Now, as for the other three places I tried to call this afternoon, I'll be the lady on the phone on the train on Monday morning. My apologies in advance!

Sound and Art for Peace

This video came up on my Google Reader via Presentation Zen, a blog I like to follow. If you look, he also recently posted a hilarious presentation about buying a car. Anyway, this one is an old interview with John Lennon about what else, peace. It's worth a listen and the art is something else, too. In case you're not convinced yet, the film was also nominated for an Oscar (Best Animated Short Film) in 2008. Enjoy!

Campaign Contributions

We haven't heard much about the US presidential elections since Obama finally got enough delegates to secure the Democratic Party nomination. It's likely we won't hear much more, either, until both parties have their national conventions. In case you were wondering, the Democrats will be in Denver from 25-28 August and the Republicans will be in Minneapolis-Saint Paul (that's in Minnesota for your non-American readers) from 1-4 September.

In the meantime, it can be easy to forget that there's even going to be an election in November. There isn't much happening being reported in the news and it's a safe bet that the Olympics will have most of our attention anyway. Today, though, I happened upon a website that puts a whole new twist on the election year. The Huffington Post has a site called FundRace 2008 that allows you to input a place or a name and find out which political campaigns people are contributing to! Yes, it's an opportunity to spy on your neighbors and a few famous people if you so desire. I found out, for example, that Carrboro, NC has mainly supported democratic candidates. You can also look up the 2004 elections if you get excited.



If you enjoy the graphics that these maps provide, check out another entertaining website, NameVoyager. It creates dynamic images of name popularity of the ages - and they change as you type the name! I find them fascinating and beautiful. And if that's not enough for you, here's a site at the University of Maryland with links to even more pretty information!

July Reading

Lynne Truss: Eats Shoots and Leaves
Michael Pollan: The Omnivore's Dilemma
Robert Ludlum: The Altman Code

And the one-word reviews:

Truss: pithy
Pollan: compelling
Ludlum: lite

My Project

Did I mention I've been working on a little project?
Results should be in by the end of September...