The Roomies

As I mentioned before, I share a room with 3 other mamas here. This was also the case after I gave birth to Lupe - I stayed 7 days with 3 other mamas in the same room. We learned to feed and bathe and take care of our newborns together. It probably sounds like you have zero privacy in this space, but the rooms are pretty spacious and you can close up your entire personal space with these huge curtain separators. 

I don’t know if they do this in the states (from what I know, everyone pretty much can have their personal, private room) but Mama San told me when she gave birth 30 + years ago, she also shared a room with other mamas... and they’re all still good friends to this day. I don’t have contact with the mamas from before, but I thought that communal support and bond with others who are going through similar experiences was pretty awesome.

I officially met my roomies a few days ago while we were waiting for our laundry to be done in the wash room. I learned two of them, who both happen to have the same name Miyuki, were having twins. Miyuki #1 (who was due sooner) having girls and Miyuki #2 (due the day before me) having boys. I also learned the Japanese word for “twins” = futago. Both are in their late 30’s and both are having their first babies. Our last roomie, Yukari, is about my age. She isn’t due until April but is on bedrest for something called intrauterine growth where the fetus isn’t developing/growing according to gestational age, so they’re closely monitoring her as well. She also has a son about Lupe’s age. 

I mentioned how the language barrier is an issue - one of those issues is that I have no motivation to initiate conversation. Thankfully, my roomies were super kind and somehow probably heard from the nurses that there was this foreigner from Hawai’i. Being that Japanese people in general love Hawai’i (it's a bit problematic, will get into that another time), they approached me and asked me questions first and even attempted to speak what little English they knew, lol. That made me feel a bit more comfortable to speak the little Japanese l knew. So here we were, in the laundry room, communicating with each other 25% English, 25% Japanese, 25% gesturing and 25% totally in the dark and confused... 100% enjoying each other’s company regardless, lol. 

Miyuki #1 shared that her c-section date was only a few days away and how nervous she was. She was nervous for the operation but so excited to finally meet her baby girls. We all shared words of comfort and support and the next day, I remembered my sis Naomi had bought me an ORIGAMI book to bring to the hospital to pass the time. I decided it would be a great time to learn and made my first ever origami crane. According to the book, the crane symbolizes peace and good fortune and longevity because of its fabled life span of a thousand years. I decided to make 2 of them - took me a while to get those creases super straight and perfect (fail), lol. The night before her early morning scheduled c-section, I gave them both to her and said, “futago desu.” 😆 

We all had one last roomie hang out (she was scheduled to change rooms post-surgery) and wished her the best. “Odaijini” = please take good care of yourself. “Ganbatte, kudasai” = good luck, please do your best. Miyuki went in this morning at 9am, and around 11am, we all got the good news from the staff that her baby girls are here safe and mama is doing well and recovering. ♥️♥️♥️