The book What to Expect When You’re Expecting does nothing to address the fears of an eager mother-to-be living in an unfamiliar South American city.1 I am far away from family and friends, learning the intricacies of a new language, traveling through exotic geography and culture, and taking on the mental transition into motherhood. Unfortunately, this book, my primary resource, is lacking in so many critical ways.

It has no reassuring answers to address my concerns about giving birth to my first child in a foreign county. It does not even deal with such banal things as what the right word is for "baby Moses basket" in Spanish, for example. Just last week over lunch I found out from a friend that women here in Colombia are expected to bring everything with them to the hospital—nightgown, clothes for the baby, diapers, blankets, toothbrush—everything.

They are not expected to bring things they want that are different from what the hospital supplies, or additional things, as suggested on the neat checklist so kindly printed out in What to Expect, but everything. The only things the hospitals provide are the beds and medical personnel.

"Wow," I thought to myself, "so good I had this conversation.…But what if she hadn’t thought to tell me these things and I had just showed up at the hospital? Would they have made the baby go without diapers, or had me give birth in the clothes I arrived in?"

Worse yet, What to Expect has completely neglected to address even one paragraph on the "humanitarian aid worker on an intermission between field assignments and when she can start back to work." Stated another way—how I can reclaim my former identity and profession after I give birth to this baby?

I keep looking for the chapter entitled "International Contracts after Conception." If it isn’t a chapter, than perhaps it could be a small paragraph devoted to the issue of when agencies are willing to accept applications for new mothers who want to be based back in the field. Perhaps it could have been included in the postpartum section. A question in the traditional format would be, "I’m eager to return to my work with refugees in Africa, what is the usual timeline for aid agencies to offer field contracts to new mothers?"

I am only half-joking about my troubles and of my criticisms of this book. In truth, it has been an invaluable tool. What I am suggesting is that some major gaps exist out there in the world of babyland advice.

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that the editors of the What to Expect series issue an international edition. Although such a book may be helpful, I am not even interested in a version of questions and answers for women like me who undergo difficult transitions within an international setting.

What I am seeking—and what many other expectant parents perhaps remember wanting—is a better way to prepare for the elaborate transition between the two worlds that pregnancy represents.

Transitions. Those magical, wondrous, frustrating times of moving into the unknown. How do we prepare for them? How do we enter and exit more smoothly? Is there a Lamaze breathing technique for the evolution of becoming a parent, like there is for the birth of my child? With so few reference points, how does one merge the lives and commitments of three persons, where there used to only been one? Through meditation? Yoga? Prayer? Luck?

In another part of my reasoning, I tell myself "no matter how much we plan, doesn’t life turn out differently than we expect anyway?" Why should my expectations about being a new mother be unique? What is so "wrong" with living in a state of some uncertainty? I don’t want to know the sex of my child, why should I want to know where my next field posting will be? Why do I want to know all the challenges I will face as a new parent? Isn´t living inside the story of life better than knowing the answer to all the trials and eventual outcomes of the events in life?

Some of my friends tell me I’m crazy to want to go to a place like Sudan with a small child. Others encourage me to "take the time out to get to know my new child, to form the much required bond through quiet trust building time, without entertaining frankly stupid thoughts of seeking employment without concern for the lovely little child’s health and relationship building needs with his/her mother in the short time that society allows." (Try saying this in all one breath out loud and you will come close to the lecture that I have received.)

Meanwhile, I will continue to practice my breathing exercises, avoid international hangouts known to be targets for attack, and struggle to find courage to bring a life into the world with the wisdom to instruct it with my family’s values. At the same time, I will continue to check the Web and BBC daily to see what developments have occurred in the demobilization of the child soldiers of Liberia, and which agencies are starting up programs that I might like to work on in the Sudan.

And I will not worry that my expectations may not match the best-selling books of advice for new parents.

Notes and References

1. Heidi Murkoff, Arleen Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, What to Expect When You’re Expecting (New York: Workman, 2002).

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