Delivering a baby, Jordan style!

My wife and I can check off another box on our list of potential cross-cultural experiences: having a baby in the Middle East. The Reach 364 clan is one daughter larger, and mom and baby are doing just fine.

It was a really good experience. Because we're attached to the embassy and have good health care, we were able to deliver at Jordan's top birth hospital. The queen herself delivered there. Friends who had babies here raved about it; one friend, now living in the US, told us she would consider flying back to Jordan to deliver her next baby. The health care was that much better than the US. My wife and I laughed when a British TriCare representative told us over the phone that Jordan was not a "center of excellence", so he wanted to airevac us to a military hospital in Germany. We both felt much safer with our Jordanian doctor than a military one.

When the big day came, we were proud of ourselves because we checked into the hospital and filled out all the paperwork entirely in Arabic--despite the fact the hospital employees speak English. That's an accomplishment, because most people don't have the patience for our Arabic and just switch to English as a courtesy. After that we headed up to our room to drop our bags. For months, I'd been hearing from friends about how extravagant the rooms are. They compared the hospital to a five-star hotel. The rooms were really suites, with kitchens, living rooms, and extra beds for dad. So we were both a little shocked when we got to our very standard hospital room, which was painted entirely in that nauseating shade of blue hospitals seem so fond of and furnished only with a hospital bed for mom. I replayed the Arabic conversation in my mind and realized immediately what happened: during one ambiguous moment, I had accidentally turned down the first-class room we were entitled to. Oops! Oh well. We decided to stay. We're always complaining about the extravagant entitlements that separate American government employees from the population, so we took this as our chance to live a little closer to the people.

The delivery itself was fantastic. The doctors were charming and friendly and put us at ease. We felt more comfortable than we did with the birth of our first child in the US. The team of doctors included Muslims, an Orthodox Christian, and an evangelical Christian, and somehow they all got into a friendly discussion (in Arabic) about different worship practices. It was a pretty funny sight... my wife and I squinting with concentration as we tried to follow the theological conversation, while the doctors chatted and delivered the baby. I wish every bigoted pundit who warns about how evil and intolerant Muslims are could have seen this very ordinary, cheerful display of religious tolerance and camaraderie.

We faced some pretty funny culture differences between our deliveries in Jordan and in Monterey, CA--which is about as green-hippie as hospitals come. In Monterey, dads were equal partners with moms. I was the first to hold my son. I cut the umbilical cord. Immediately after the delivery, I accompanied the nurses to the nursery, where I helped bathe my son for the first time and put on his first diaper. In Jordan, I got one quick glimpse of my daughter over the nurses' shoulders before they whisked her off to the nursery. I spent a couple hours moping around outside the glass, looking in, before they let me take her. Later, I dropped by the nursery to fetch some diapers. The nurse looked shocked; dads don't change diapers. She wheeled my daughter off to the nursery and changed her herself.

In Monterey, the nurses were big on this thing they call "skin to skin" to help the baby bond with his parents. They stripped our new son down to a diaper and a blanket, and he spent most of his first few days of life affixed to my wife's or my bare skin. Here, it was the opposite. Before the nursery would release my daughter to us, I had to bring some clothes by. It took three trips before the nurse was satisfied. First trip was a onesie. Second trip was a hat and boots. Third trip was a jacket and pants. By the time the nurses were finished with my daughter, she looked like a marshmallow. She was sweating when she reached our room, so after the nurse left, we discreetly dressed her down.

Despite the advanced, Western-quality care available in the hospital, we were always in that cloud of uncertainty that cross-cultural living entails. When my wife's anasthetic wore off and the pain started, we weren't really sure what medicine was available--if any. Meals took a couple hours to be delivered, and usually only after we followed up three or four times. We never liked releasing our daughter to the nursery, even for something as simple as a diaper change, because it might take an hour or two to get her back. We were never sure why.

But all in all, it was a great experience. The great strength of the Arab culture is its focus on my family and relationships. We enjoyed the warmth and hospitality of the doctors and nurses, and the celebratory atmosphere on our floor as dozens of visitors poured in and out of neighboring rooms.

Now we are moving on to the next phase. In this culture, relatives and friends all come visit a week or so after a baby is born. It's a way of honoring us and saying congratulations face-to-face.