Becoming a Mom in a Siberian Hospital
It’s not quite like anywhere else
Our hospital confinement was about to end. As I walked to the discharge area, I felt my heart pulsate in every part of my body. Behind me, an elderly nurse carried my newborn son. The baby slept soundly in the blanket I wrapped him in for protection against the Siberian cold.
In Russia, a nurse carries the newborn out of the hospital instead of the mother. I don’t know why this is the case, maybe they try to make it seem as if the nurses took care of the baby throughout the whole postpartum stay.
In reality, the only one who took care of my baby was me, a twenty-four-year-old new mom just out of labor
Like most Russian maternity hospitals, ours did not allow any visitors, even the father, inside postpartum rooms “for sanitary reasons.” My husband had to leave an hour after our son was born, and the two of us were on our own.
“Get up, take the baby, and follow me,” a nurse commanded five hours after I delivered my son.
The birth itself was fairly uneventful, but it still seemed too early for me to stand up, let alone carry a newborn. The nurse was insistent. Carefully, I peeled myself off the bed, picked up my son — I had never held anything so precious and fragile in my life — and slowly followed her down long hallways into our postpartum room.
The room was incredibly utilitarian: white walls, beds on wheels, a changing table, a sink, a mini-fridge, fluorescent lights — and not a single adornment, not even a picture on a wall.
We spent a total of three days there, which is the minimum required in Russia (compared to one to two days in the US, UK, and many other countries). Three days in the hospital might be great from a medical standpoint but seemed to last an eternity.
During that time, I did not yet feel like a mother, more like the same old me who suddenly had to take care of a random baby. But I did my best, like I always do.
Taking care of a newborn consists of just one thing: keeping the baby from crying. At first, it was simple. If he cried, I breastfed him, (grateful for all the YouTube videos on breastfeeding I had watched), and he slept again.
Soon, however, my nipples felt like they were on fire
“Why do my nipples hurt so much during breastfeeding?” I asked a young nurse, convinced that such pain could not be normal.
“Did you rub them with a rough towel while you were pregnant?” she asked. I admitted that I hadn’t. “Well, you should have. That would’ve hardened them in advance. There’s nothing you can do now.”
I wondered how much rubbing it would’ve taken to prepare for what was coming.
To give my nipples a break, I tried to keep the baby asleep as long as possible. His flailing arms woke him up, so I asked a nurse to show me how to swaddle him. Without saying a word, she put the baby on a blanket, swiftly pulled its top corners over his body, brought the bottom part up, around him, and voilà — the baby was wrapped in a tight cocoon.
She made it look so simple, like an experienced baker shaping a piece of dough. Over and over, I tried to mimic her movements, as if preparing for a baby-wrapping contest. I got other nurses to repeat the demonstration but I was never able to swaddle like they did, and my son would still wriggle his arms out.
Soon, I gave up and asked my husband to bring some zip-up swaddles with the groceries he dropped off for me. Those worked fantastically, and I was proud to find a convenient modern alternative to an ancient practice.
There was, however, no convenient modern alternative to waking up with the baby at night. During our second night, he wouldn’t fall asleep for hours, and I sat crying on my bed at three in the morning while breastfeeding for what seemed like the hundredth time.
I cried from exhaustion, but also from shock at how demanding the baby was
Taking care of him required an unreasonable amount of effort, and I desperately wanted an easy way out, but there was no going back now, and, in reality, I could not imagine my life without him.
That, I later understood, is parenthood in a nutshell.
My alarm clock rang at five-fifty every morning: by six we needed to be at the baby’s weigh-in. It’s still a mystery to me why that had to be done so early — it’s not like he didn’t eat the whole night and would weigh less before breakfast.
During the day, I tried to sleep whenever my son slept, but the staff kept unceremoniously coming in with check-ups, food, or to mop the floor. The doctors regularly examined the baby, measured my temperature, pressed on my stomach, and inspected my nipples, but not once did they ask how I slept or how I was doing emotionally.
If I did not bleed profusely and could breastfeed, I was considered to be fine.
I knew I was fortunate to be in a nice hospital surrounded by doctors I could trust, yet, I was eager to be in the comfort of my home and under the care of my husband. In my mind, this confinement was the price I was paying for having a baby.
Those three days in the hospital were like limbo — the baby was already born, but none of my loved ones had seen him yet (besides my husband for a delirious hour in the middle of the night). Thus, it didn’t quite seem to happen. To fully exist, the baby had to exist in my real world.
A few more steps and we would be out of the hospital
Walking there felt like giving birth again, but now without the pain and with more rejoicing. This time, the happiness would be shared and multiplied.
I came up to the turnstile connecting the inner part of the hospital to the discharge room. My ears, used to the quiet, were filled with chatter and laughter.
The discharge room looked like an overcrowded gift shop full of people in coats holding balloons and bouquets. Bringing a baby home is a big deal in Russia. The bright spring sun bounced off the glossy walls, mirroring my agitation.
No one had noticed me yet.
I began to turn the turnstile with one hand, clutching my hospital bags with the other. My abdominal muscles felt weak, not quite holding my body in balance, and I attempted to clench them tighter.
“Anya!” my mother’s voice called my name.
I felt slightly embarrassed, like when I was a child and my mom called out to me in a park, drawing everyone’s attention to us. Familiar faces turned toward me and suddenly broke into applause. My chest tightened and tears of happiness filled my eyes.
My husband and parents were there as I expected, but what seemed like ten other people — cousins, uncles, and friends — were also gathered to celebrate me and my son getting discharged.
They stepped closer, hugging me, grabbing my bags, and handing me flowers. My husband was beaming. He carefully took our son from the nurse, looked at the baby adoringly, and gave me a long kiss.
