I've decided to revive my blog so hello, I'm back! We're off to Thailand and Australia in a few weeks and I'd like to blog about the trip and post some pics. I'm dreading travelling with a 2 year old but really looking forward to actually being there.
Since I last wrote here we've been devoting pretty much every Saturday morning to househunting as we decided that it's about time that we both bit the bullet and became home owners. We don't plan to be in Rome forever but we're committed to at least a few more years here and prices have come down slightly so it seemed a good time. As a nice househunting side effect we've both been getting to know the real Rome a lot better and venturing out to areas we'd never ventured to before. The more I see of the less central, more residential areas of Rome the more I realise what an amazing place this is.
Some native Romans I know recoil in horror when I tell them where we are looking (snobs!) but we like it out there and, frankly, don't care. For Sydney people, we're looking in the equivalent of somewhere like Ashfield or Strathfield rather than Mosman, Darlinghurst or Newtown. For the New Yorkers let's say we're looking in Bayside, Queens rather than the East Village, Williamsburg or Park Slope.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Random stuff
The baby is having her afternoon nap, husband is at work (on a Sunday but that's life when you own a Bed and Breakfast) and two of my sisters in law who were here for the weekend have just left to catch the plane back to Holland.
I've started walking to work which gives me plenty of time to think and lately I've had all these great ideas for blog posts which of course I can't remember now that I'm actually sitting in front of the computer blogging.
Before I had a baby everyone said that "having a baby changes you". I was kind of anticipating that I'd feel the sudden urge to chuck it all in at work and become a stay at home mother. But, strangely enough, having a baby has had almost the opposite effect on me. I enjoy my work more than I did before as, I guess, work is the only place pretty much where I get to be just ME rather than Astrid's mummy. So while I really enjoy weekends and evenings at home with the baby it's also nice to go to work fulltime and get a bit of a break from being the mum of an active toddler (well, ok I'm still her mum but I get a bit of me time at work even when I'm working). I definitely hadn't expected this after seeing so many of my friends give up their careers outside the home when they had kids. I guess everyone really is different.
I have indeed changed a lot but it was not having a baby which did it but rather being very, very sick last summer and having a close brush with death. I feel so cheesy now but this little brush with death (I'm fine now though, thank you) really hit home that we're only here once (unfortunately I don't believe in reincarnation) and we have to enjoy every minute of it. Even trudging to work after a night of insomnia or 3 am baby wakeups have their upside - 'oh well, at least I'm alive!'
On the other hand, spending so many weeks in a 6 person hospital room with a bunch of much older women made me kind of morbid. I need to work on feeling like a 'young' (well, 38) person again and being more carefree.
I've started walking to work which gives me plenty of time to think and lately I've had all these great ideas for blog posts which of course I can't remember now that I'm actually sitting in front of the computer blogging.
Before I had a baby everyone said that "having a baby changes you". I was kind of anticipating that I'd feel the sudden urge to chuck it all in at work and become a stay at home mother. But, strangely enough, having a baby has had almost the opposite effect on me. I enjoy my work more than I did before as, I guess, work is the only place pretty much where I get to be just ME rather than Astrid's mummy. So while I really enjoy weekends and evenings at home with the baby it's also nice to go to work fulltime and get a bit of a break from being the mum of an active toddler (well, ok I'm still her mum but I get a bit of me time at work even when I'm working). I definitely hadn't expected this after seeing so many of my friends give up their careers outside the home when they had kids. I guess everyone really is different.
I have indeed changed a lot but it was not having a baby which did it but rather being very, very sick last summer and having a close brush with death. I feel so cheesy now but this little brush with death (I'm fine now though, thank you) really hit home that we're only here once (unfortunately I don't believe in reincarnation) and we have to enjoy every minute of it. Even trudging to work after a night of insomnia or 3 am baby wakeups have their upside - 'oh well, at least I'm alive!'
On the other hand, spending so many weeks in a 6 person hospital room with a bunch of much older women made me kind of morbid. I need to work on feeling like a 'young' (well, 38) person again and being more carefree.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Health care in Rome
It's difficult to make generalisations about the Italian healthcare system. For one thing it's run at a regional level and an experience in Bolzano will be entirely different from an experience in Sicily. Now that I've experienced the trifecta of childbirth, open heart surgery and a major allergy attack at Roman public hospitals I do feel more qualified than most to comment on the system in Rome at least.
At first glance, Rome's public hospitals are pretty forbidding places. It's not uncommon to turn up for your appointment to find no information desk, no signs and have no idea where to go for your appointment, as has happenned to me a few times at various places. In this situation, it's customary to poke your head into office doors and accost people passing by in white coats in order to finally make it to the correct place (often late - in which case you'll usually find that your doctor has left to treat patients in his/her private practice). Doesn't seem like the most logical system but somehow this seems logical to many Italian hospital administrators. In addition, I've learnt the hard way that you need to get to the hospital much earlier than your appointment time so that you can pay your 'ticket' (a wildly varying fee you need to pay for health visits and tests) ahead of time.
The hospitals also have a forbidding air due to the fact that they are usually run down, depressing places, with peeling paint, broken chairs, dirty bathrooms (toilet paper and soap are both rare) and a general feeling of decay. At the hospital where I had my open heart surgery, someone had written things like floor numbers and directions to the mammogram clinic on the wall in felt tip pen as (I assume) getting a proper sign made would have been too expensive. This type of thing does not give the nervous patient a feeling of calm.
However, I found that when I was really, really sick, the hospital was there for me. I had a great team of cardiologists treating me at the public hospital and had life saving surgery by skilled surgeons (so i assume - on the other hand it may have been dumb luck!) When I was in intensive care and semi intensive care it was pretty similar to what you'd probably experience in other Western countries (caveat - I've never been in hospital anywhere but Rome).
Where things fell down was when I was feeling a lot better but was still in hospital (say week 3-4 of my 7 week stay) when I was moved to a tiny 6 person room with dirty bathroom down the hall, shared by 18 people plus visitors, and cleaned only once a day. Sharing a room with that many other women (no curtains), many of whom were suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, I learnt a lot - but not all of it things I really want to know already in my 30s (I'll spare my readers the details). It was very hard to sleep and the 'healthier' patients spent a lot of time keeping tabs on the 'less healthy' patients (I'm thinking particularly of a woman with profound memory loss/dementia who kept trying to climb out of bed to 'go upstairs').
It was ok for me by this stage as I was feeling a bit better after my surgery but there was a young woman with advanced breast cancer on the next bed to mine for several weeks who was unable to sleep because of the racket these women made day and night. I'm no expert but I'm sure that this was not good for a person fighting advanced cancer and, in fact, she looked worse and worse (and more tired) as the days wore on. I'd also like to know the rates of post-op infection at Roman hospitals as those bathrooms were filthy, there was no soap and the nurses weren't available to help us bathe (apart from the occasional quick bidet).
I've also heard lots of heart wrenching stories about giving birth in Rome. Most of it seems to be due to lack of organisation but also lack of caring about a woman giving birth feeling excessive pain or discomfort. I was lucky when I gave birth because the hospital I chose offered rooming-in with the baby post birth, had an anaesthesiologogist available when I wanted an epidural and has a relatively low rate of c-sections (around 40% rather than 80% of births as at some private clinics in Rome). I did a lot of research ahead of time to find a hospital which offered (more or less) what I wanted. Well actually I would have liked a water birth but since that's not available at any Rome hospital I gave up on that idea and worked with what was available.
Many Italians say "the hospitals here aren't very 'bello' but the doctors are great." I'd agree with that assessment with one caveat. The fact that the hospitals are run down and underfunded is indeed largely an aesthetic problem but when it comes to lack of toilet paper, soap or clenliness it's actually very serious. Hospitals must (at the very least) be clean and there must be soap in the bathroom.
At first glance, Rome's public hospitals are pretty forbidding places. It's not uncommon to turn up for your appointment to find no information desk, no signs and have no idea where to go for your appointment, as has happenned to me a few times at various places. In this situation, it's customary to poke your head into office doors and accost people passing by in white coats in order to finally make it to the correct place (often late - in which case you'll usually find that your doctor has left to treat patients in his/her private practice). Doesn't seem like the most logical system but somehow this seems logical to many Italian hospital administrators. In addition, I've learnt the hard way that you need to get to the hospital much earlier than your appointment time so that you can pay your 'ticket' (a wildly varying fee you need to pay for health visits and tests) ahead of time.
The hospitals also have a forbidding air due to the fact that they are usually run down, depressing places, with peeling paint, broken chairs, dirty bathrooms (toilet paper and soap are both rare) and a general feeling of decay. At the hospital where I had my open heart surgery, someone had written things like floor numbers and directions to the mammogram clinic on the wall in felt tip pen as (I assume) getting a proper sign made would have been too expensive. This type of thing does not give the nervous patient a feeling of calm.
However, I found that when I was really, really sick, the hospital was there for me. I had a great team of cardiologists treating me at the public hospital and had life saving surgery by skilled surgeons (so i assume - on the other hand it may have been dumb luck!) When I was in intensive care and semi intensive care it was pretty similar to what you'd probably experience in other Western countries (caveat - I've never been in hospital anywhere but Rome).
Where things fell down was when I was feeling a lot better but was still in hospital (say week 3-4 of my 7 week stay) when I was moved to a tiny 6 person room with dirty bathroom down the hall, shared by 18 people plus visitors, and cleaned only once a day. Sharing a room with that many other women (no curtains), many of whom were suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's, I learnt a lot - but not all of it things I really want to know already in my 30s (I'll spare my readers the details). It was very hard to sleep and the 'healthier' patients spent a lot of time keeping tabs on the 'less healthy' patients (I'm thinking particularly of a woman with profound memory loss/dementia who kept trying to climb out of bed to 'go upstairs').
It was ok for me by this stage as I was feeling a bit better after my surgery but there was a young woman with advanced breast cancer on the next bed to mine for several weeks who was unable to sleep because of the racket these women made day and night. I'm no expert but I'm sure that this was not good for a person fighting advanced cancer and, in fact, she looked worse and worse (and more tired) as the days wore on. I'd also like to know the rates of post-op infection at Roman hospitals as those bathrooms were filthy, there was no soap and the nurses weren't available to help us bathe (apart from the occasional quick bidet).
I've also heard lots of heart wrenching stories about giving birth in Rome. Most of it seems to be due to lack of organisation but also lack of caring about a woman giving birth feeling excessive pain or discomfort. I was lucky when I gave birth because the hospital I chose offered rooming-in with the baby post birth, had an anaesthesiologogist available when I wanted an epidural and has a relatively low rate of c-sections (around 40% rather than 80% of births as at some private clinics in Rome). I did a lot of research ahead of time to find a hospital which offered (more or less) what I wanted. Well actually I would have liked a water birth but since that's not available at any Rome hospital I gave up on that idea and worked with what was available.
Many Italians say "the hospitals here aren't very 'bello' but the doctors are great." I'd agree with that assessment with one caveat. The fact that the hospitals are run down and underfunded is indeed largely an aesthetic problem but when it comes to lack of toilet paper, soap or clenliness it's actually very serious. Hospitals must (at the very least) be clean and there must be soap in the bathroom.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Cheese splurge
Hmmmm....smelly cheese stinking up the fridge. Normally we buy all our cheese at he cheapo supermarket. My Dutch husband consumes so much that we have to buy in bulk. But yesterday we went for a walk in a rather swanky neighbourhood near us and I came across a little cheese shop which sold (wonder of wonders!) English cheddar (spelled "cedar" like the tree on the little sign on top of the cheese), artisinal gorgonzola (my favourite cheese of all time - lucky I live in Italy I guess!) and other smelly delights.
In the end, I got a bit carried away and spent 17 euro on cheese. The cheddar was 36 euro a kilo. Ouch! I'd better go make some macaroni cheese and cheese right now as, at that price, I don't want it drying out in the fridge.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Birthing Centre in Ostia
My pregnant friend who lives in Ostia was telling me that a brand new state of the art birthing centre has just been completed next door to Ostia Grassi Hospital complete with birthing tubs, private rooms with beds for the dads to stay in after the birth, midwife led birth and birthing chairs and balls - all of which are unheard of here in Rome except in the very fancy and expensive private clinics (the new birthing centre in Ostia is public). My friend was so excited that she would be able to give birth at this new centre as she had her first baby at the same public hospital in Rome where I gave birth. It was ok but no birthing tubs and no private rooms. After the birth the fathers had to go home and they were only allowed to see the baby (and mother) for a couple of hours a day in a shared room.
Well, apparently this brand new birthing centre (paid for with our tax euros) is now empty and idle because funding has been cut for the salaries of the midwives who work there (and I suppose other staff). The midwives are continuing to work there on an unpaid volunteer basis but they are now only doing 4 births a month so it's unlikely my friend will be able to get in.
I was so happy to hear that progressive things like stand alone birthing centres, birthing tubs and private rooms which allow the fathers to stay with the mother had finally come to the public system here in the Rome region. But it sounds like a typically Italian bureaucratic snafu is now preventing this brand new (and I assume expensive for us taxpayers) facility from being used. What a shame! And what a waste!
Well, apparently this brand new birthing centre (paid for with our tax euros) is now empty and idle because funding has been cut for the salaries of the midwives who work there (and I suppose other staff). The midwives are continuing to work there on an unpaid volunteer basis but they are now only doing 4 births a month so it's unlikely my friend will be able to get in.
I was so happy to hear that progressive things like stand alone birthing centres, birthing tubs and private rooms which allow the fathers to stay with the mother had finally come to the public system here in the Rome region. But it sounds like a typically Italian bureaucratic snafu is now preventing this brand new (and I assume expensive for us taxpayers) facility from being used. What a shame! And what a waste!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Bedtime!
My blog seems to be getting more and more baby focused. Oh well, I guess that just reflects my life at the moment.
Anyway I was wondering if anyone had any input re the bedtime issue. Astrid (who is almost 1) goes to bed at 9pm (used to be 9.30 but we pushed it back) and gets up around 7.30. She usually naps for around 3 hours a day. I figure 13 hours of sleep a day is ok but then talking to some Dutch and American B&B guests and surfing the web I realise that bedtimes in other countries - or at least the Netherlands and the US -tend to be extremely early. The Dutch seem to put their kids to bed at around 7.30 and one American told me that the kids she babysits go to bed at around 6!!
So are we denying our baby the sleep she needs? A sometimes wakes up at 5.30 and won't go back to sleep so I'm always afraid to put her to sleep earlier. But I've been told that these kids who go to bed at 7.30 sleep 12 hours a night. Are different kids just different or is there some secret to an early bedtime.
The only issue is that I get home from work at 6.30 at the earliest so if the baby went to bed at 7.30 I'd hardly see her and there wouldn't be time for a breastfeed, dinner and maybe a bath before bed. But I guess working hours are earlier in Northern Europe as well.
Anyway I was wondering if anyone had any input re the bedtime issue. Astrid (who is almost 1) goes to bed at 9pm (used to be 9.30 but we pushed it back) and gets up around 7.30. She usually naps for around 3 hours a day. I figure 13 hours of sleep a day is ok but then talking to some Dutch and American B&B guests and surfing the web I realise that bedtimes in other countries - or at least the Netherlands and the US -tend to be extremely early. The Dutch seem to put their kids to bed at around 7.30 and one American told me that the kids she babysits go to bed at around 6!!
So are we denying our baby the sleep she needs? A sometimes wakes up at 5.30 and won't go back to sleep so I'm always afraid to put her to sleep earlier. But I've been told that these kids who go to bed at 7.30 sleep 12 hours a night. Are different kids just different or is there some secret to an early bedtime.
The only issue is that I get home from work at 6.30 at the earliest so if the baby went to bed at 7.30 I'd hardly see her and there wouldn't be time for a breastfeed, dinner and maybe a bath before bed. But I guess working hours are earlier in Northern Europe as well.
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