我在中国生孩子

By Rachael Petua Summersby（乌干达） 译/孙梦格

我的心跳开始加速，几乎出汗了。眼泪涌上我的眼睛。随着绝望、恐惧和焦虑的加剧，日子一天天过去。“我要在哪里生产?”在祈祷和入睡之前，我又忍不住问丈夫。“一切都会好的，我们会找到的。”他平静地回答。第二天早上，我起来听到一些好消息。

VIP，双人还是普通？

“鲍勃想和我一起吃午饭，他中午会来接我们。”我丈夫欣喜若狂地说。鲍勃在附近一家妇产医院工作，我们和他成为朋友已经几个月了。在微信中，我丈夫彼得询问了更多关于医院的细节，但鲍勃似乎没搞明白。中午，我和鲍勃、彼得一起相约吃午饭。我们上了鲍勃的车。一到目的地，午餐就变成了一个多姿多彩的派对活动，有很多孕妇参加，紫色的气球和白色的丝带到处都是，从天花板的一角飘到另一角。穿着白大褂的医生们坐在座位上，当我们走进来的时候，他们面带微笑，频频点头，看上去很兴奋。护士们穿着紫色的外套和黑色的长筒袜，戴着五颜六色的丝巾，她们的笑容如此灿烂，以至于你都能看到她们洁白的牙齿之间的缝隙。她们看起来更像是飞机上的空姐，但事实却并非如此。那天晚上大家都在窃窃私语，咯咯地笑着，兴奋不已。毫无疑问，他们看到鲍勃、彼得和怀孕的我走进了门也很兴奋，也很快就有人要求和我们拍照，微信朋友圈又要被狂轰滥炸了。我看着鲍勃，他笑了，就像我们中了彩票一样。

主要活动在电影院里举行。食物、表演和谈话源源不断。虽然我们什么都听不懂，但怀孕让我对食物充满兴趣。

坐在我们旁边的鲍勃很快拿出了一份完全用中文写的表格。他咧嘴一笑，力劝我们签字。彼得和我面面相觑。他们似乎忘记了我们两个既不会说也不会读中文。“VIP，双人房还是普通房?”鲍勃用一种平静但明显急促的语气问道。我们还是什么都不懂。“VIP，双人还是普通？”他重复道。我的心跳开始加快。我没有答应去他的医院，但他已经(在他心中)默认我们答应了。一个声音在我心中不停地重复着：“VIP, 双人还是普通?”他真的这么快就要跟我们签约了吗？我问自己。

My heart began to race, I was nearly sweating. Tears nearly springing to my eyes. As desperation, fear and anxiety escalated, so did the days. “Where am I going to give birth?” I told my husband just before praying and finally falling into a deep slumber.

“It’s going to be ok. We’ll find something”, he replied calmly.The next morning, I arose to some promising news.

VIP, double or normal?

“Bob wants to meet me for lunch, he’ll be here at noon to pick us up,” my husband said ecstatically. Bob was a gentleman working at a maternity hospital close by, we had been friends with him for a few months. In our talk, with Bob on We Chat, my husband, Peter, enquired on more details on the hospital, but Bob didn’t seem to understand. At noon, I joined Bob and Peter to their luncheon. We hopped into Bob’s car and off we went.On reaching our destination, the lunch party turned out to be a colourful event where pregnant mothers were being recruited.Purple balloons and white ribbons filled the cool air, moving from one corner of the ceiling to the other. Doctors wearing their white gowns sat at their seats, smiling widely and nodding as we entered, they looked excited. Nurses, in their purple coats, black stockings and multi-coloured scarfs stood straight,they smiled so wide you could see a gap between their beautiful white teeth. They looked best to serve on a plane as air hostesses, but it wasn’t the case. Whispers, chuckles, and excitement was the order of that evening. No doubt, they too were excited to see Bob, Peter and pregnant me walk through the door. Requests for photos of course were made and within minutes,We Chat moments was once again bombarded like a wildf i re. I looked at Bob and of course Bob smiled like he had won a lottery.

Inside the cinema, where the main event was held; food, performances and talks were being made. Even though we didn’t understand anything being said, but being pregnant I was more interested in the food I was given.

Bob, who sat next to us, quickly pulled out a form written completely in Chinese characters. With a huge grin, he urged us to sign it. Peter and I looked at each other. It seemed that they had forgotten that neither of us could speak or read Chinese. “VIP,double room or normal room?”, Bob asked in a calm but noticeably hurried tone. We still didn’t understand anything. “VIP,double or normal?” he repeated.My heart started to pace fast. I hadn’t committed to going with his hospital, but he had already(in his mind) recruited us. ‘VIP, double or normal,’ a voice kept repeating within me. ‘Is he really signing us up this quick?’ I asked myself.

本文作者（左五）生产后与护士和医生合影

鲍勃指着表格上的房间价格。价格看起来好得令人难以置信，但等等……一大堆问题在我脑子里冒了出来：贵宾是什么？双人是什么？普通又是什么？这家医院在哪里？然后鲍勃提到了一个词，我猜他是在说“折扣”。当然，这也是我想听到的。我让他把他想说的话在微信里打出来，你瞧，他说的就是折扣。我的心怦怦直跳，我又笑起来，并且越来越健谈，我想知道更多的信息。所以，我又问他我们是否可以去医院参观，但他那粉红色的表格又在我面前跳来跳去，恳求着我签字。

活动结束后，鲍勃和一位护士开车送我们去医院。他带我们去了双人间。它的确又大又宽敞，干净又舒适。他们好像在说“你不会想错过这个的”。“房间里有尿不湿、肥皂、凉鞋、婴儿服、毛巾等等用品。”他们说。“不会吧。”我难以置信地说。“这一切都是给你的，你留着吧。”鲍勃说。“不会吧！”我倒抽一口气，惊讶道。鲍勃笑了，他不明白我的“不会吧”到底是什么意思。“哇，这太厉害了！”我说。“不，这不算什么。这是给你和你的孩子的。”我对我在房间里看到的一切感到震撼。在我看来，事情已经谈成了!

他又把我们带到另一个房间。“这是单人房间。”他说。“哦，不用了，我们对这双人房很满意。”我说。然后他把我们带到走廊中的另一个房间里。他打开门，这个房间很漂亮，它内部的装饰风格与医院其他房间都不一样，家具金光灿灿，房间明亮宽敞，带着现代化的厨房，一个房间是准妈妈的卧室，另外一个房间是为助产士准备的。这两个房间都很好。这个房间简直太豪华了。“这是贵宾间。”他说“等等，你是认真的吗?”我震惊地问道。

Bob pointed to the prices of the rooms on the form. The prices looked too good to be true, but wait... What is VIP? What is double? What is normal? Where is this hospital? Bob then mentioned a word that led me to guess he was trying to say‘discount.’ Of course, that’s what I also wanted to hear. I asked him to type what he was trying to say in We Chat and lo and behold, he indeed was talking about a discount. My heart started to dance within me, I grinned so wide and became very chatty,I wanted to know more. I asked him again if we could have a hospital tour, but his pink forms were dancing in my face pleading to be signed. After the event, Bob and a nurse drove us to the hospital. He took us to the double room. Undeniably, it was large, spacious, clean and welcoming. By welcome I mean it looked like they were saying ‘You do not want to miss this.’ The room came with pampers, soap, sandals, baby clothes, a towel and so much more. “No way,” I said.

“All this for you, you keep,” Bob said. “Nooooooo ,” I gasped.

鲍勃几乎顾不上说话，他只专注于带我们去参观贵宾间，与其说是贵宾间，它其实更像一间皇宫，溺爱着你，让你忘记所有的烦恼。这间房间的水准完全上升到了另一个等级。

离开贵宾间，我们跟着鲍勃一起去参观了医院的一堵照片墙，墙上挂着所有医生的照片。与我们随行的护士看着我们，脸上露出微笑，告诉我们每个医生都是专家。

“这位，她有25年的专家经验，她拥有学士硕士学位……”她滔滔不绝地说了起来，“这位，她有40多年的专家经验了，她是整个余杭最厉害的医生，还有这位，也是位专家……”她还在继续说着。看到她下定决心要我们在那些文件上签字，我们笑了。为了减轻她的压力，我们插话告诉她，不要再费心介绍其他的专家了，因为我们已经对之前所看到的感到满意了。

“好的，好的。”她一边向我们比着OK的手势一边说道，“没问题，这间医院很好，没有问题。”我们继续笑着，她也笑了。我们签了合同，并付款完成了交易。

检查

没有一个医生会说英语，我也不会说中文。所以我经常感觉很沮丧，雪上加霜的是，有时候微信的自动翻译功能会“自作主张”地翻译，让双方之间的互相理解更加困难。

我开始担心和怀疑，在分娩过程中如何顺利沟通。我开始感到紧张和不安，在这段时间里，也许我的宝宝也感受到了我的担忧，他踢我的频率也变高了，这也许是他给我的特殊回应。

不管怎样，我们还是决定用微信来相互交流，看看到时候最终情况会如何，但事情似乎一直没有进展。我们给鲍勃打了电话，鲍勃就像我们在医院里的一个救星。尽管他只会一点英语，但他知道自己仍然是翻译，并且很享受自己的这一角色。

“鲍勃，我们要去医院了。”我们通知他。“你现在来？要来的话叫我。”他总是欣喜若狂地回答说。当我们到达医院时，我们向鲍勃解释了我们的担忧。他带了一位能试着说英语的护士过来。

“那在产房里怎么办?”我问，“如果医生们想和我交流，让我用力，我怎么知道他们在让我用力呢?我们还能通过微信交流吗?”

Bob smiled, he didn’t understand where my ‘no way’ was coming from.

“Wow, this is spectacular,” I said. “No, no”, he said, “this is nasing nasing, is for you and for your baby.”I was in awe with everything I saw in the room. In my mind the deal was closed! He took us to another room.”Single room,” he said.”Oh no, we are happy with the double,” I said.

He then led us to another room down the hallway. He opened the door. The room was elegant. Its interior architecture was like no other in the hospital. The furniture was a gold-like, it reflected the light in the room, the room was spacious and came with its modern kitchen, another bedroom for the pregnant mother stood on its own in a corner and next to it was a room for the midwife. Both rooms were well catered for. This room was simply rich.”This VIP,” he said.

“Wait, were you serious about the VIP room?” I asked shocked.

Bob was silent, all he was focused on doing was taking us on a tour of the VIP that looked more like palace and to be pampered and forget about all your worries, than a hospital room. It was another world all together.

We left the VIP and he completed the hospital tour by taking us to a wall with photos of all the doctors. The nurse who tagged along, looked at us and with a smirk began to inform us on how each one of the doctors is an expert.

“This, she is expert 25 years, she has Bachelors, Masters in... ”she began, “zis she is expert 40 years, she is the leading doctor in the whole of yuhang... this one, she is expert for... ”, she continued. We smiled and chuckled away seeing how determined she was to make us sign those papers. To ease her fear, we interjected and told her not to worry about the rest of the experts,for we were already happy with what we had seen.”OK, OK.”she said giving us the okay hand sign, “no problem dis hospital very, very good. No problem,” she finished. As we continued laughing. She smiled. Papers were signed, payments were made the deal was done.

Check ups

None of the doctors could speak English. I couldn’t speak Chinese either. Many a times I was frustrated because there were days when We Chat decided it wanted to translate its own way making life even more difficult for both parties.

I began to fear and wonder how communication would be during delivery. I began to feel nervous and agitated and during these times I felt my baby kicking a lot perhaps in response to what I was feeling.

这就是我对即将到来的我的大日子的预测，我们的谈话可能会是这样的：“用力！”医生会说。“你说什么?”我问。“什么？”医生会问。“听不懂！”我看着医生说。

特殊翻译

每次我们到医院来，我们都会给翻译鲍勃打电话。在整个过程中，他都很高兴地帮助我们。

“不，你们只说英语就行。”每次我们想用中文跟他说话时，他都会对我们耳语。

然而，当我们用英语和他说话时，他盯着我们的眼神透露出他一点都不知道我们刚刚说了什么。然后我们又把刚才所说的重复了一遍。“哦，哦，我明白了……”他答道。

有时候，当他把故事翻译给他的同事听时，我注意到他翻译出来的意思一点也不对。一转眼，就有大概5个护士和4个医生不知道什么原因来到我们身边试图帮助我们。我们转向鲍勃问道：“鲍勃，你跟他们说了什么?”“好吧，好吧，我知道了。”他一边回答，一边让我们放心。

医生和护士都会用中文说话，试图解决翻译鲍勃造成的问题，这时我和丈夫会微笑着让护士和医生知道一切都好，他们没有什么好担心的。“我知道，我知道……”这是鲍勃一直在说的话。

他喜欢让所有的病人和他的同事把他看作“外国人”的救星。我们非常爱鲍勃。他一直是一个特别的朋友，一个做好事的人。

生产

我被带到产房接受剖腹产手术。孩子出生时，我尽量保持镇静。刚听到他第一声哭声，我就看见护士们纷纷拿出手机与婴儿拍照。接着，我原本以为的完全不会说英语的这些护士，都在说着“photo”。我通过反光看到她们与婴儿在拍照，并摆出剪刀手大笑。我的心开始怦怦直跳，因为我担心他们会忘记我还在那里，但谢天谢地，还有另外两三名医生继续为我进行后续处理，而其他人则在产房里不断发着微信。

每天早上，有二十到四十年工作经验的专家来看我。我发现更有趣的是他们的人数——这是一个8到10人的团队，有老有少。他们包围了我的床，好像这是我在地球上的最后一天。他们包括主治医生、副手、英语翻译（也可能是鲍勃的翻译助理），还有穿着粉红色衣服的护士、“食品女士”(她总是兴奋地给我食物)，而其他护士只是站在那里，每当其他人说了什么他们就点头和微笑。

We decided to use We Chat, anyway, to communicate and see how things would be done then but still there seemed to be no way of help. We called Bob. Bob was like our saviour at the hospital. Even with the little English he knew he was still ‘the translator’ and he enjoyed his role. “Bob we are coming to the hospital,” we informed.

“You come now? When you come, you call me,” he always replied, ecstatically.

When we got to the hospital, we explained to Bob our concern.He brought over a nurse who tried to speak English. “What happens in the delivery room?” I asked, “If the doctors are trying to communicate and tell me to push, how will I know they are telling me to push? Shall we still communicate over We Chat?”This is exactly how I was thinking the big day and our conversation would go like: “Tui,” the doctor would say. “Sorry?” I would ask.

“?” the doctor would question. “Ting bù dng!” I would look at the doctor and say.

Special translator

So, whenever we got to the hospital, we called Bob the translator. He happily assisted us throughout the entire process. “No,you speak me in English only,” he would whisper into our ears,every time we tried to speak to him in Chinese.When we spoke to him in English, he would stare right into our eyes signalling that he hasn’t a clue what we just said. We would then repeat what we had just said.“Oh oh, I understand...” he would reply.

Sometimes when he would translate back to his colleagues I noticed he would translate an entire different story and before you know it, there were like five nurses and four doctors all coming to our rescue surrounding us for reasons we didn’t even know.We then would turn to Bob.”Bob what did you tell them?” we asked. “OK OK, I know,” he would replied, assuring us.

The doctors and nurses would all be speaking in Chinese, trying to resolve something that Bob the translator caused and at that point my husband and I would smile and let the nurses and doctors know that it’s alright and they had nothing to be worried about. “I know, I know...” was all that Bob kept saying.He enjoyed getting all the patients and his colleagues to see him as the saviour of ‘the foreigners’. We love Bob so much. He continues to remain a special friend and a man of good deeds.

The birth

I was taken to the delivery room where I had a C-section. I tried to remain as calm as possible while the baby was being born. As soon as he was taken out, and heard his first cry, I saw nurses rushing to get out their phones for a photo with the baby and all of a sudden, these nurses whom I thought didn’t know English at all were uttering “Photo, photo, photo, photo,” and through the reflection I saw them pause with a photo with the baby as they held their ‘peace sign’ with huge grins on their faces. My heart began to pound as I was afraid that they had forgotten that I was there but thank goodness there were a couple of other doctors who continued to work on me while the rest continued to bombard We Chat moments in a delivery room.

Every morning the doctors-the experts with twenty to fortysomething years of experience- came to visit me. What I found more interesting was how many they came as - a team of eight to ten, old and young. They surrounded my bed like it was my last day on earth. There was the head doctor, probably her deputy, her English translator who was probably Bob’s translating assistant, there were nurses dressed in pink, the food lady(who was always excited to bring me food) whilst the rest of the nurses just stood there nodding and smiling every time a statement from the rest were mentioned.

The last day of our stay was filled with tears and joy. Our joy constituted of the great times we had at the hospital and the tears spoke of my sadness to leave such great people. Of course,the experts returned with a bang- they came for photos with me, my husband, new born baby and my mom.

As I was packing the midwife told me in Chinese that most of the stuff in the room was mine. She pointed at a beautiful baby’s blanket and said it was mine.

“Really?” I said.She nodded and then pointed to three glass bowls.”Really? These too?” I asked.She nodded and pointed at even more exciting items that came in a huge bag. She told me they were for me. “No way,” I said.She nodded again.”Noooo waaaaaay,” I insisted.She nodded and this time with laughter.”Are you serious? All these?” I then pointed to the very big hospital baby bassinet, asking her if that too was mine. This time I couldn’t see her smile, she shook her head vigorously.”Bù bù bù bù,” her hands raised in the air as though she was ready to fight.

After we completing our packing, we were escorted to the gate with Bob the translator and our midwife who refused to pass the baby on to me to hold. I asked her if I could hold the baby as we went to the gate and with a serious face she looked me in the eye, and very quickly said “bu bu bu” waving her hand. What could I do, but accept? She had bonded so much with the baby that I believe if I gave her permission to take the baby with her,she wouldn’t even blink! By the way, she was also very lovely!

I loved giving birth in China!

我们逗留的最后一天充满了泪水和喜悦。我们在医院度过了一段美好的时光，我们的喜悦由此而生，泪水也诉说了我为离开这些可爱的人们而感到的悲伤。他们来和我、我的丈夫、新生儿和我的妈妈合影留念。

在我打包行李的时候，助产士用中文告诉我，房间里的东西大部分是我的。她指着一条漂亮的婴儿毛毯说那是我的。“真的吗?”我说。她点了点头，然后指着三个玻璃碗。“真的吗?这些吗?”我问。她点了点头，指着一个大袋子里的更令人兴奋的东西。她告诉这些都是给我的。“不行。”我说。她又点了点头。“不行不行。”我坚持道。她点了点头，这次大笑着。“你是认真的吗?所有这些吗?”然后我指着医院里一个很大的婴儿摇篮，问她“那是不是我的”。这次我看不到她的笑容了，她使劲摇了摇头。“不不不！”她举起双手，好像准备好了要战斗。

收拾完行李后，我们和翻译鲍勃以及助产士一起被护送到大门口，她好像并不情愿把孩子交给我抱。我问她，我是否能抱着孩子，她严肃地看着我的眼睛，很快地挥手说：“不不不。”除了接受，我还能做什么呢？她和孩子的关系如此密切，我相信如果我允许她带走孩子，她连眼睛都不会眨一下就会照办的！不过她也依然很可爱!

我喜欢在中国生孩子！