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Ep. 4a & 4b - A Serbian-American in The Netherlands

Updated: Oct 23, 2019

In this week's two-part episode, Jovana Paredes shares her experiences with pregnancy and birth in The Netherlands. after having already lived in Serbia, Canada and the United States. After having spent most of her life in Canada and the United States, Jovie found that she was hesitant to adopt Dutch birthing norms - but a single birthing class taught by a local doula would change her entire path and perspective on the matter.

When Jovie moved to The Netherlands to practice as an international war crimes lawyer, she had already lived much of her life abroad. So when she met her Spanish husband Alex, starting a family together in a country that was not native to either of them was probably not as shocking to her way of life as it might have been for others. Even still though, she felt very conflicted with the idea of a midwifery model of care. Despite not having much information or experience on the competency of midwifery in The Netherlands, Jovie fought to have a model of care that was more familiar to her - and was rather begrudgingly seen by an OBGYN who would question why she was even there at every appointment.


But after taking a birthing class with a local doula, Jovie's entire perspective changed on the power and beauty of childbirth, and she quickly saw that the midwifery model of care was the way she wanted to go.

"By trying to insist on having the Dutch system adapt to what I was expecting from the US's system, it really caused me a lot of grief and the antenatal depression and anxiety [I suffered from] was not diagnosed because I was not under the correct care, and it ended up ultimately hurting me."

Jovie's first birth ended in an emergency cesarean which was not handled properly by the staff anesthesiologist, and it left her husband rather traumatized by being made to feel like he had to make a life-or-death decision which was not in any way necessary. For their next birthing experience, Jovie chose to have an elective cesarean which was peaceful, gentle, and observed all of Jovie's wishes. She found the experience empowering, beautiful, and an important experience to share with others.


Topics discussed:

Emergency cesarean, elective (planned) cesarean, pregnancy-related edema, omphalopobia, gestational diabetes, antenatal anxiety, and elective tubal ligation.


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