Happy birthday America, or as some like to call it, Northern Mexico.
It is definitely an eye-opening experience living in a foreign country. If you ever have the chance, I recommend it highly. Too often we as Americans are lulled into a mindset of patriotic zeitgeist where we assume that our way of doing everything is "the best" since we are "the greatest" country on the planet. One could make the argument that this arrogance and elitism is at the root of some of our foreign policy missteps but I digress... I don't want to turn this post into a political diatribe on the 4th of July. I'm not that patriotic.
I have however, seen too may examples of American tourist living up to their "ugly American" stereotype that much of the world holds about us. One quick word of advice and then I will step down from the soap box: when visiting a foreign country, RELAX and accept that, although things are different and admittedly at times frustrating, acting like a 3 year old whose ice cream was snatched out of his hands, stomping your feet, yelling, and other obnoxious behaviors will NOT ACTUALLY HELP YOU GET ANYWHERE. In fact in most cases, people will actually treat you like you behave: an idiot. In the great globalization of the planet, ideals such as customer service and 'time is money' have not yet pervaded the culture everywhere; especially here on SXM.[PREACH OFF]
Of course living in a different culture allows one to better appreciate how good we actually do have it. Creature comforts such as dependable electricity, running water, and oh.. I don't know... let's say... PAVED roads are a distant memory that makes me long for the good old U S of A.
Not everything has been bad however.
Dozens of people have asked me how I felt having a baby in a foreign country. I admit at first I was a little anxious about having a baby here. As a paramedic and an ER nurse I have had ample opportunity to deal with my share of sick neonates. I have a keen appreciation of the importance of a certain level of expertise as well as a certain amount of necessary technology required to do it well. At my first glance of the hospital on the French side there was little to substantiate the claims by everyone I spoke with that the French hospital was more modern and better equipped than the Dutch hospital here. As we drove into the complex we passed a small herd of cattle were lazily grazing. Hmm ,I thought, "We're not in Kansas anymore." (that and the curious lack of a creationist lobby here on the island..again with the digressions....)
My anxieties were soon allayed however when, in the exam room, I noticed that these backward, heathen, socialistic, and altogether French people use the same exact equipment that was in use at most of the hospitals that I have worked in. OK, fine they have the toys but do they know how to play?
This too proved to be worry over nothing. As a matter of fact I would go out on a limb and say that for the entire experience that it was not only comparable to a US hospital, in our case* it was superior. The entire delivery was handled by a nurse-midwife and I do mean the ENTIRE delivery. She was the only staff member (besides the anesthesiologist who administered the epidural) that we dealt with. She placed the IV, drew labs, hung and titrated her own medications, during the delivery make the episiotomy incision, and sutured it herself at the end(no pun intended hahahaha). A physician was only called when the baby's head was crowning (as back-up in case of a need arose for an emergent c-section) but the baby was delivered by the time he arrived. I was invited to participate in the peri-partum care: I got to help clean, bathe, dress, measure, weigh, and hang out during the entire process. The staff was wonderful and extremely helpful. So, based on my prior experience, and my being about 40% of a doctor now(yikes!), and what I witnessed here for myself, I would whole-heartedly recommend having a baby at the French hospital if you found yourself here.
This picture was taken while I was leaving the hospital for the evening and the cows were munching right next to the hospital entrance.
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* Thankfully we had no need of a NICU nor were there any complications that needed attending to. One could argue that a routine delivery, sans problems, can be effectively handled in a barn- and you'd be right.
