Name: Yaara Barker
Age: 31
Place of residence: Perth, Australia
Most misses my dear family and the NHS.
Before we moved to Australia, I remember myself saying to The Light: “Do you know that moving to Australia will delay the issue of children? A foreign country, far from my mother… I don’t know if I can do it.” After four months in Australia, I’m pregnant.
Mother will happen to me
I’m very attached to my mother. At some age, I realized that not every house is like this. My mom is the first person to share, she’s my confidante, she’s praising me and supporting me with every decision. She also decided to move to Australia she supported me, even though it’s super hard for her and I hear it in her voice.
When I flew to India for a few months, I died of longing. I was traveling with a friend whose mother was planning on coming to see her on a trip. I sent a message to Mom (so there was no iPhone, WhatsApp and endless communication on the trip), “Daniel’s mother comes here at Passover, why don’t you come too?”. A few days later, I asked her, “Well, have you thought about that?” She said, “I already bought a ticket.” That’s how champion my mom is. The two weeks with her in India were the most fun weeks of my trip. She’s probably what I needed to make the journey from good to perfect. She means everything to me.
This whole introduction is just so you realize that staying away from Mom wasn’t easy. Orr says it wasn’t until I moved to Australia that we tore the umbilical cord.
Needs motherhood membership
For the first three months we kept the little secret to ourselves, but I remember well one evening that we went out to the restaurant some girls to meet a new girl who came to town and gave her a Volkam meal. We were six Israeli girls, one of them one mother. The pregnancy and birth call came up. “Oh, childbirth is a terrible thing”, “The most frightening to me is the birth itself”, “Yoo and the body does not return to itself…”, “I have no idea how I will get through it”, “No I am not ready yet…”… And I’m trying to tell one of them, Mmm, why not? You’re after a degree and you’ve got a good job. What I realized that night was that I needed maternity friends… And I’m not sure if my friends are the direction.
I flew to Israel for a month’s visit. I told companies in Israel and Australia. When I got back (early Thursday), Anna, one of the friends said she was also pregnant. It was a shock because I felt they were not heading. From that moment it felt like a baby boom around me, from the same group, three became mothers back in the same year and who was already a mother became a second pregnancy.
During this period, we met other Israeli mothers with children, about the same ages, and this made the process easier. One friend sent me a list of what to take to the delivery room and what to make for the baby before, she came with me to a nursery and I got a whole briefing on consumerism from her.
Whenever I was undecided, I asked her if it was desirable, whether it was unnecessary, and what they should bring me from Israel. Another friend brought me a book about natural childbirth and talked to her about her experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. In every direction I had someone to talk to and share this process with. Turns out this childbirth and children thing is very combative. I couldn’t believe how within a year in a place I had so foreign, I would feel surrounded by warmth and love throughout the process.
Baby Expo
We heard there was a Baby Expo in town and decided to go see what it was about. We didn’t know what our brothers wanted or needed, we just went. We got a fever, shock! The Mawwan things for babies, products we didn’t know existed. “What is this…? Wait why that?” “What do we do with it?”
From products for the convenience of the pregnant woman to all possible products for the baby. I wanted to buy but I really didn’t know what exactly, what was really needed and what was unnecessary. Of course when I asked Orr what he thought should be bought – nothing! Orr was in complete shock. First of all from the amount of women – I brought it to a place with a very high concentration of women: young, old, breastfeeding without cover, hardly any men were seen there. Second, the amount of nonsense they’re trying to sell to parents. Most of the women there came with their mother or a good friend and I took light. It’s probably another sign that we’re immigrants. We don’t have family there and what girls did with their mothers, I did with Light.
We went to take a break. Or left me for a few minutes alone and went to get us food and I kept a place. Or came back and found me crying. “What happened?” he asked. “These are things I have to do with Mom… I want to go through this process next to my mother…”
We came home and talked to Mom. How lucky she answered almost like light. “You don’t need anything, just a little diapers and clothes to start with and I buy you a cart when I arrive, go see carts.”
Along the way
Pregnancy in the first year of immigration made the situation more confusing. I couldn’t go to a job interview when I had a stomach. I worked as a substitute teacher at the Jewish school, but I wanted a more permanent job. I will be frustrated by the situation, that I am usually at home before pregnancy and probably after the pregnancy I will be at home. It’s like starting maternity leave too soon.
My best friend in the country was also pregnant, we were a few days apart on the estimated date.Of course it disappointed me to be so far away when we could experience this process together. We kept comparing things and it turned out that in Israel we do a lot more tests. At first it freaked me out, maybe there’s something wrong with medicine here? Why don’t we do another ultrasound or weight assessment? But I realized there was no end to the worries and I just went along with the health care system here.
In general the Australian medical accompaniment is excellent. First the accompaniment is that of the family doctor and from about 20 weeks, you meet in the hospital with an obstetrician nurse for a follow-up appointment. She asks, checks, and I can bring up things that bother me, too. On behalf of the hospital there is also a breastfeeding sedna, a preparatory workshop for both parents, sports classes once a week for childbirth and also after birth, which can be brought with the baby. These are all things that every mother who is a permanent resident is entitled to.
Sometimes the appointments with the midwife were not easy. I didn’t always understand their English, whether it was the heavy accent or some kind of medical concept I didn’t know. Except that as soon as they hear that my husband works in the mines (working away) and that I don’t have a family here, they put me at a high risk of postpartum depression. I remember one of the meetings saying I couldn’t sleep. It drove me crazy. I wanted a physiological solution, a pillow or pills. But she told me, “You probably don’t fall asleep because of thoughts.” I was asked to fill out a questionnaire that was trying to check on the mental well-being of the mother but the feeling was that I was being tried to infect me with depression.
Calculations and considerations
It comes to light a week off from work to childbirth, and he works week to week. So if he’s taking a week off, he’s home for three weeks. We planned for him to take time off exactly on the approximate date and so he would be home just before and after. I remember the concerns of a month before. I was afraid something would happen when I was home alone. Light within flight distance and there are no flights from there all the time. These are the moments you feel all alone again. I have amazing friends but no one I could imagine holding my hand at birth. In the end, Or took sick leave and was at home with me for three weeks before the estimated date.
Mom could have taken a month off. So when should she come? I wanted you to be at birth, it was very important to me and we wanted to spend as much time together as possible after giving birth, so you could help me in the first few moments. But if I give birth before me? What if I give birth after me? Mess. We decided to take a bet that I’d give birth after the date, and she planned to land three days after the estimated date.
The date’s coming up, I’m starting to feel pain every now and then, but just simulated contractions. “Mom, I’m afraid to have a baby before you come. What are we going to do? Why don’t you get ahead of yourself?” There was no time to get ahead anymore, it’s a two-day plus-minus flight, depending on Conkshain. On Thursday evening we arranged her guest room, bought flowers and made a lovely sign.
