Pain

OK, it's over 100 degrees here so the baby is either too tired to kick and bop around or it's still too early for me to feel any movements. According to the books, this week could be the week where I get those first "butterfly flutterings." So far, nothing. I don't go back to the doctor until July 24, so I have no baby updates and must continue to focus on myself as giver of life to Baby Cugini.

I have never been hospitalized here (thank God!) so though I've been here seven years, I've really been kept in the dark about what that's really like. Thus every new tidbit I find out about being hospitalized in Italy shocks and confuses me. When talking to other women who have given birth here, there's inevitably the story of the "moaning roommate," the woman who having had a C-section moans and whimpers day and night while her family members sit at the foot of the bed holding rosaries and doing the sign of the cross. When I've asked Italians "Don't they offer pain medications here?" I've been told smugly "Oh, you Americans with your 24-hour drugstores and over-the-counter medications, you are too reliant on pain medications, always so quick to self medicate." Yes, this is the country, after all, where to buy a bottle of aspirin, it requires a pharmacist in a white lab coat to sell it to me and costs five times what I'd pay in the U.S.

The other American and foreign women who have given birth here tell a more sinister tale. One American friend who had a C-section in the U.S. and a C-section here says Italian nurses are "stingy" with pain meds. She said that in the U.S. she was given pain meds right away after her surgery whereas here she had to cry and beg for hours - and by the time she got it, it took forever to kick in and she suffered for hours needlessly. For days after, she had to beg and beg for more medication. When I've asked why they don't dole out the pain medication here, I've been told everything from "It's not Catholic" (well, neither am I so get my narcotics ready!) to "The hospitals are broke and they ration the little medication they have."

The second answer makes more sense. These are public hospitals where I will give birth for free. I guess the attitude is "beggars can't be choosers." Much like homeless people who line up for free rations at a soup kitchen can't ask for "some grated parmesan on that" or "a side of those delightful little gourmet croutons," as a free "customer" of the hospitals here, I can't expect many extras either. Well, here's where that analogy runs off the rails: I pay FIFTY PERCENT of my salary in taxes so I can have these fantastic public services, such as health care. I'm actually not a beggar and the nurses technically work for me. Too bad they don't see it that way...