MH17: A Plane Has Crashed

"A plane that took off from Schiphol has crashed in the Ukraine." I told my husband as I saw a pop up from Sky News on my IPad.

"What?" he said, grabbing the remote control to put the television on.

The true horror of what lay behind those uttered words would unfold not only over the following hours but over the three days since. The first reports were that "tientallen Nederlanders" were on board that plane. That in total 298 people were flying to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam on that plane. That plane which now lay gruesomely broken in thousands of pieces over square kilometres of desolate Ukrainian soil. That plane and everything in it.

298 souls that would never return to their loved ones. 298 people who boarded a plane and never reached their destination.

And then events unfolded that seemed surreal. The plane had been shot down. It was flying over a war zone. Pro-Russian separatists had shot the plane down. The Ukrainians had shot it down. Nobody had the capability to shoot it down. Denials. Blame. But still 298 bodies.

And then tientallen Nederlanders turned into 193. The Dutch Prime Minister stated that this loss of life would invariably mean that many Dutch people would know someone who was effected by this unimaginable tragedy. A friend of a friend. A neighbour. A work colleague. A family member.

This country I call home is a small country. And true enough as passenger details emerged my social media timelines filled with more and more horror as people I am connected with in some way realised their colleague had lost a family member, that they had lost a former boss, a colleague, a friend. Not just a former boss, colleague or friend but also his entire family, his wife and two small children. A couple from my home town were also aboard. My Whatsapp pinged angrily with disbelief.

There's a dark cloud hanging over the Netherlands, which becomes darker still as the international media brings stories to light that no family member should ever have to read. Details I can't get out of my head. Images that turn my stomach. That break my heart. That turn these beautiful sunny summer days dark.

There really are monsters roaming this earth, despite what I tell my sons, that monsters do not exist, that they needn't be afraid. But the reality is we should all be afraid. Terrified of what we human beings do to one another. What we are capable of. Time and time again.

I wish I could turn the clock back. Tell that pilot not to fly over a war zone. Tell those passengers not to get on that plane. Tell those waving them off to hold their loved ones a little tighter, tell them just how much they are loved. But I can't. No one can. What has happened is real. It has taken a few days to sink in. But it is real. The unimaginable loss is real, not just for Dutch families but for so many families scattered across this globe of ours. And there are so many of us who feel helpless. I wish there was something I could do to help those who have lost someone dear to them in a godforsaken place in the Ukraine.

Rest in peace. That's what we say when loved ones are lost. But I wonder how that is possible in these circumstances. There is no peace to be found in the way these lives were lost. There is no peace to be found in the way bodies are being treated three days after that plane came down. There is no peace to be found as 'soldiers' pose with the cuddly toys of the children who will never become adults. There is no peace to be found as personal possessions of the dead are rifled through and stolen. And there is no peace in knowing we as human beings are capable of these actions. The best we can hope for is justice. And that is by far not enough.

The Future of Zwarte Piet

We are usually spared the whole Zwarte Piet debate until around October or November time when Sinterklaas is due to hit Dutch shores but this year the summer is already poised to be filled with Black Pete discussions.

Last week an Amsterdam court ruled that Zwarte Piet is a racist figure, and consequently the Amsterdam council may like to rethink the intocht (the arrival of Sinterklaas in November in the city) and revisit the appearance of the iconic Dutch figure. The court has expressed that the council should consider the negative feelings that Zwarte Piet evokes for some people. In short, Zwarte Piet is a negative stereotype. Some agree with the court ruling. Some don't.

Last year the anti-Zwarte Piet lobby was more vocal than ever and even the United Nations waded into a debate that had longed stayed at a national level, stepping on more toes than it ever could have imagined.

Behind the scenes, not just in Amsterdam, but in the Netherlands as a whole, a new image of Zwarte Piet is being discussed and worked on. What this means for 2014 remains to be seen but it is likely that the stereotypical slavery items such as the gold hooped earrings and the black curly hair will be the first to go. There has also been lots of talk of ditching the black face altogether in favour of different colours - rainbow Petes if you will. I saw an example 'Purple Piet' in a newspaper article and I have to say it looked pretty good.

As I stated last year in a blog post the time for change has come and Zwarte Piet will evolve - that is sure to happen. It is something that has been happening over the decades anyway in a slow and subtle manner. But it is a fact that any dramatic immediate change will be met with fierce resistance.

However the Zwarte Pieten look when they arrive this November from Spain with the good, holy Sint I do hope that someone else will be doing the explaining for us parents who will be the ones left with confused children asking a billion and one questions. The same children who do not see Zwarte Piet as a racist figure, the same children who fortunately wouldn't know what racism is if they fell over it on the way to school, the same children who are blind to the implications of the colour of a person's skin and see Zwarte Piet as a fun clown like figure. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the evolution of Zwarte Piet, far from it,  but I hope that whatever changes are made the children are put first - after all Sinterklaas is a children's celebration.

Lest We Forget - 70 Year Commemoration of D-Day

The images on television over the last few days have been poignant - commemorating D-Day and the Battle of Normandy. Remembering all those that lost their lives at the beginning of the end of World War II. As images flash before me, I can see myself standing in those same places a few years ago when we visited Normandy. The feelings flooded back.

As Obama spoke of the American soldiers as he stood in the Normandy American Cemetery my mind automatically fluttered back to the feeling of horror mixed with serene reflection which overtook me surrounded by 9,387 white crosses marking lost American lives. It is one of the most amazing places I have visited and a site that truly brings home the scale of the loss of life of the D-Day landings and the battles that followed. So many in their final resting place so far from home.

The American War Cemetery in Normandy

The Commonwealth, British and German war cemeteries were no less poignant. 

The British war cemetery in Bayeux: a humbling place to be

So many of the German graves are unnamed soldiers

The German cemetery: the black crosses in contrast to the white
crosses in the American cemetery is striking

In Arromanches-Les-Bains, as Prince William made a speech about ensuring that our generation and the generations to come never forget the sacrifices made on these Normandy beaches, I remembered walking across the beach at low tide to take a closer look at what is left of the floating harbour which is linked to Sir Winston Churchill.

And as we wandered around Normandy we were struck day after day by the scars that the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy left on the area. It is immersed in what happened along that coastline seventy years ago. I hope those scars will be an eternal reminder of the sacrifice and bravery of so many who gave their lives for the freedom with we live with today. Lest we forget.

Kirstie Allsopp and When to Have a Baby: Mission Completed

Kirstie Allsopp (a British TV presenter) has whipped up quite the storm in a tea cup with her comments urging women to get themselves settled in the family way before opting for a higher education. She states that many women end up with fertility issues because they are going to university and getting their career on track before thinking about babies. By the time they opt for motherhood their biological clock is no longer on their side.

Doing things the other way around, in her opinion, would be a better tactic. First a family and then university in your 40s or beyond. She's not saying don't get educated, just that there are other ways of doing it without sacrificing a family life and facing problems in your 30s getting pregnant.

She's had her fair share of negative press over her comments (headlines for the sake of headlines in many cases), as well as those who say she absolutely has a point. Whatever you think when you read her interview she has achieved something incredibly positive - a debate. She has people talking about fertility issues and age, discussing the right time to have a family.

And I think she has a valid opinion. There is no arguing against the medical facts; maternal health risks increase as a woman ages, not just for a mother to be, but for her baby too. Getting pregnant gets harder too.

I was 33 when I became pregnant the first time. The nuchal scan done at that time showed a minimal risk of having a baby with a chromosomal condition such as Down Syndrome. By the time those same tests were done during my third pregnancy when I was 38 the results produced a shockingly much higher risk ratio. In the space of those five years there was a huge, dramatic change.

And once I had a newborn at home for the third time it was also obvious that those five years made all the difference. In fact, the eighteen months that had passed since my second son was born already made a marked difference. I was much more tired; sleep deprivation had a huge effect on my own health. Being a new mother just got tougher as I got older. That's nature. That's a fact.

However, my personal circumstances were never such that I considered having a baby in my 20s. I met my now-husband when I was 27, not far from 28. I'd known him all of nine months when I moved to the Netherlands. That just wasn't the time to start a family. I found a job. We found a small house, one foot on the property ladder. We talked about children but we wanted to be more settled. We wanted a bigger house first, space for a family. We wanted our finances to be more secure. We didn't want to be worried about every euro and cent providing for our family.

In 2005 my partner and I went on a road trip across part of the western side of the United States. That was the result of a conscious decision to make a trip that we wouldn't necessarily do with children. At least not young children. That was a last blast, go with the flow holiday before consciously trying for a family. By May the following year we were expecting our first son.

And that is our story. And every single couple on this planet has their own story. We were ready in 2005 to commit to having a family. Once we felt we were in a good position financially, emotionally and physically to start a family. Others make less conscious decisions. Some couples become parents when they least expect it. Some couples have struggles to become parents that they could have never have imagined. It is always a personal journey into parenthood.

Do I wish we had started a family whilst we were a little younger? Sometimes yes. But at the end of the day I have three healthy little boys and I feel that I have more to offer them now as a mother than I would have done in my 20s when I was hardly more than a kid myself.

My parents were more than a decade younger than us when they became parents. My mum said once that she felt that she hadn't had a real youth - she was raising two children instead of going out and doing the things that a 20 year old does. Their reasons for having children young were very different and less conscious than our decision to wait until we were in our 30s. Their story is very different to ours. But our two different stories beg the question: is there ever a perfect time to enter parenthood? There are sacrifices whatever the age. There are pros and cons, whatever the age.

And that is just the point. Every story is different. Every couple is different. At the end of the day, whether you are a teenager, or in your 20s, 30s or 40s when you make that decision to have a baby, in whatever circumstances that may happen, you work with what you have. You take each step at a time and you grow as a person, and hopefully as a parent. But. There is a but. That but is that fertility decreases as we get older.

What Kirstie Allsopp has achieved is discussion, some of it less respectful than it could be, but she is right that the issues that women face when they decide to have a baby in their 30s or beyond should be talked about. Reality should be a topic of conversation. Women want it all and sometimes Mother Nature calls us out on that - the biological clock is a real thing and it is not something that a student in her early 20s even contemplates whilst enjoying cheap pints in the student union bar (I speak from experience). Perhaps now, thanks to Kirstie, she will.

Home Births: Let Pregnant Women Decide

 One of the things I loved about being pregnant in the Netherlands was the fact that I was not treated like I had a medical condition. I went to the hospital during my first pregnancy only for scans (and in subsequent pregnancies even these were done in the midwife practice) a blood test in the first trimester and a rush visit in the last trimester when my baby's heartbeat was deemed to be too fast by my midwife.

The rest of the time I saw only a group of midwives in their practice. Hospitals, as great as they are when you actually need them, are not places I need to spend a lot of time in.

What I also loved was the fact that I could make a considered judgement about where I wanted to give birth. I had the option of a home or a hospital birth. If I had been pregnant in England I am 99% sure a home birth would not have even been a topic of conversation.

In the UK only 2.4% of births happen at home compared to nearly 20% in the Netherlands. The cost of a hospital birth in the Netherlands is only fully covered by medical insurance if there is a medical reason for it. Plus the Dutch first line care (midwives) advocate natural births. At least in 2006, they certainly did.

I'm an expat, and the first thing that crossed my mind was how culturally different a birth in the UK was (or in the US for that matter), where all my friends seemed to be talking about epidurals and gas and air. However, I decided that if I could, I would opt for a home birth. What could be more comfortable than not having to pack up a case and head off to an unknown, sterile environment surrounded by strange faces to give birth?

But when it came down to it I had to go to hospital. There was meconium in the embryonic fluid and I had no choice. The midwife was with me at home, and made it clear that we had to transfer as quickly as we could to the hospital. No panic, no stress, just matter of factly, "Let's move it".

I was devastated. I hadn't prepared myself for Plan B. Everything was ready for a home birth, not a hospital birth (it turned out that I seemed to have absentmindedly forgotten to complete the packing of my hospital case).

A typical delivery suite at a Dutch hospital
(ball not included!)

The details of the birth I will save for a rainy day (or a book) but suffice to say that because the maternity ward was working at maximum capacity and there was not enough staff to attend to all the women in labour as it was needed I had a difficult, stressful delivery. No woman should have to go through a traumatic labour and birth because of staff shortages. My husband and I were left alone for large chunks of time in the delivery room - feeling helpless, clueless and upset. My baby also became distressed.

So no one will ever convince me that a hospital room is always the best place for a woman to give birth, because it is safer, because of 'just in case', that it should be the first choice of every woman, regardless of situation.

A doula and a whole lot of personal experience made the difference for me the second and third births around - also in a hospital.

And so to last week. Dutch News.nl translated an article that appeared in De Volkskrant on 29 April (if you can read Dutch be sure to read the original article, and particularly the comments it evoked - including from gynaecologists themselves) called "Home Births: Let the Gynaecologists Decide".  In the article the two authors (Kenneth Watson and Rob Kottenhagen) are advocating that gynaecologists should decide whether women can safely give birth at home or not. It's an opinion piece. And this in turn is my opinion piece about the article.

The first line already riled me; translated from the original article, the piece starts like this.

"It is irresponsible to keep home births as the cornerstone of midwifery care."

And it riles me because just over 80% of women in the Netherlands give birth in the hospital. The cornerstone of midwifery care is not home birth.

It goes on to state,

"The German poet Heinrich Heine once said that if the end of the world came he would go to the Netherlands because there everything happened fifty years later. This comment seems a fitting one for another anachronistic Dutch phenomenon: the home birth. Everywhere in the affluent West the safety of mother and child is paramount and hospital births are the norm." Dutch News 2 May 2014

It goes on to talk about midwives playing Russian Roulette with the lives of mothers and babies, that midwives make woefully inadequate risk assessments.

By the time I got to the end of the piece my blood was boiling. And I don't even think it was because of the message in the article, more the tone. I can well imagine how any midwife felt reading the article. The authors imply that the priority of the midwife is not the mother, nor the baby. And how insulting must that be to such a profession?

I miss the part in the article where it states around the time that the worrying baby death figures were published that part of the discussion was that gynaecologists, doctors and anaesthetists weren't always around at night in hospitals. That their absence put women in danger.

I miss the part that admits that many women who were successfully able to have a home birth had a wonderful experience. I gave birth three times in a hospital, and not one time could I say it was a pleasant experience. It got the job done - I took three healthy baby boys home with me, but pleasant? No. Absolutely not. I am envious of the many positive home birth stories I have heard.

I miss the acknowledgement of the research that indicates that hospital births increase the chances of intervention being necessary (caesarian sections, vacuum pump and so on). That labour is lasting longer and longer as women lie around in hospital beds.

I welcome any proper discussion on the topic of child birth, whether that be about the Netherlands or elsewhere. Childbirth should be safe, no matter where you give birth. Women should have a choice. Women should make the decisions, based on facts and risks with the help of the professionals (I'm not alone thinking this see: http://www.knov.nl/actueel-overzicht/nieuws-overzicht/detail/keuze-vrouw-centraal-in-reacties-opiniestuk/1386).

I believe all women should have the right to a safe environment and professional care for labour and birth. But the truth is that sometimes things go wrong; they go wrong in a maternity ward in a hospital, they go wrong at home. Midwives are human. Gynaecologists are human. Labour is unpredictable. Births do not follow a script.

I feel strongly that demonising midwives is just wrong. That's my opinion. Instead of the eternal battle that rages on in the Netherlands between midwifes and gynaecologists about who is best to lead pregnancies, labour and births, it would be nice to see more collaboration. Instead of one camp against another I would rather see more unity, seamless co-operation, specialists working together in the interest of mothers-to-be and their unborn children. Less emphasis on who gets the money for delivery, more emphasis on safety, but also comfort! The comfort of the mother, a relaxed mother, a contented mother, which is proven to aid the labour process, seems to have been forgotten along the way.

The only positive thing I can say about this article is that, despite its dismissive, condescending tone, it has of course sparked discussion. I am, after all, writing about it. Many are talking about it. Many have commented on it. It's a topic that will always spark controversy, that will evoke the most primal of emotions. I believe women should have a choice where they give birth.

But lastly, when all is said and done, I believe child birth is a topic that should be treated respectfully, which I missed in this article.

How To Piss off the Dutch*

Sinterklaas: the children's December celebration is
under fire in the Netherlands

The best way to rile a Dutch person is to ask them why they need two Santa Clauses and suggest they scrap one, namely the white bearded one with those very questionable black helpers who arrives in the country on a boat from Spain in November. And to be honest I can understand why they are pretty pissed off at the moment.

My disbelief at what is currently hitting the news does not stem from the fact that there is once again a huge debate about Zwarte Piet, racism and slavery. The issue has been on the table for many years, there is open discussion in Dutch society about Zwarte Piet and questions have been raised many times over about whether the appearance should be altered, including from prominent Dutch figures. Traditions, in general, move with the times, things change and Zwarte Piet, I'm sure, will continue to change too.

What actually riles me about the discussion this year is that it is spearheaded by someone who seems to have very little understanding of the Dutch and what the celebration of Sinterklaas is about.  What riles me is the clumsy manner that a nation is told that their tradition is inferior to the Coca-Cola Santa that dominates the Christmas festivities of other countries, and that they should scrap their celebration on the 5th December. Verene Shepherd (UN representative) asked why the Netherlands needs two Santa Clauses. This is what pisses me off. Such a comment can only be made by somebody who is completely ignorant to the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, somebody who has not yet done their homework.

"Shepherd calls on prime Minister Mark Rutte to put an end to Sinterklaas. The prime minister has the power to influence the group that maintains this habit. If the Dutch government recognizes the Sinterklaas tradition is outdated, they should instruct the groups organizing it, to stop, according to Shepherd. And what is wrong with  one Sinterklaas? Why does The Netherlands have two?  Shepherd wondered in the program, referring to Santa Claus." - NL Times

The reality is that the Netherlands does not have two Santa Clauses. It has one Sinterklaas. I am yet to meet a Dutch family that has Santa Claus or Father Christmas visit them on the 25 December. Any Santa Claus figure that makes an appearance at Christmas time is purely commercial and is in no way a Dutch tradition. The Santa Claus that countries such as Britain and America know and love is known as the Coca-Cola Santa here. 

If the Dutch weren't already pissed off about being accused of being racist, the suggestion that they should stick with the Coca-Cola Santa Claus and do away with their own tradition certainly did the trick. Nothing like attacking a folk to get them heading to a Facebook page to express themselves at a rate of 100 likes per second….

*The title of this blog post is stolen from inspired by The Head of the Heard's post How to Piss off a Brazilian.

There Are No Words

Imagine waking one morning to hear the news that your children are missing. Suddenly. Without a trace. No one knows where they are. For two weeks you cling to a thread of hope that your little boys are unharmed and waiting to be found. Waiting for you to bring them home. The only thing you can think of is to hold them in your arms again, keep them safe for ever more. Your community goes out en masse to help with searches of anywhere the police think the boys may be. Complete strangers unite to scour woody terrain for any clues of life. The police and military are out in force to bring your boys home to you. Hundreds of thousands of unknown faces say prayers each night, hoping that their minuscule action plays some part helping in the safe return of two young boys to their mother. As days go by hope turns to dread. Everyone thinks it but daren't say it.

Two weeks of an agony that no mother should ever feel. A fortnight of frantic worry. A fortnight of panic. Two weeks of emptiness.Two weeks of hope. Hope suddenly extinguished on a Sunday afternoon as two small bodies are found by a passerby.

The mayor of Zeist described the family's grief as immeasurable. Immeasurable. An end so unspeakable. The emptiness of a mother without her children. Immeasurable. The tears for her lost children. Immeasurable.

I don't think there is a parent in the Netherlands who has not been touched in some way by the family drama that has unfolded over the last twenty days. It is incomprehensible. It is sickening. It is heartbreaking. There are no words.

The family of brothers Ruben (9) and Julian (7) do not want a "stille tocht" (silent procession) to mark the loss of the boys but recognising that so many would like an outlet for their feelings and so many want to pay tribute to two lives cut so short, they have asked people to light candles and place them in their windows between 7pm and 8pm on Sunday 26th May. There is also a national condolence register available online.

There are messages of 'sterkte' coming in from around the country for Iris, the mother of these precious boys and the rest of their family, but that doesn't convey how we all feel. Wishing her strength and courage and our deepest sympathy doesn't touch the surface of our feelings. As parents, we know there are no words for a mother who has lost her reason for being. For a mother whose grief is immeasurable now, and for all time. I pray she learns how to put one foot in front of the other again, finds a way to live with her loss and hold memories of her boys in her heart.

May Julian and Ruben rest in peace.