Better not to ask

Or at least to hear a white lie?

White lies are the norm here in more situations than in my country. That inspired this article.

---

I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair when I heard a knock on the door. My partner's voice came through, muffled under the running water. I could tell he was asking something, but not what. "No te escucho pero estoy bien," I shouted back. I can't hear you but I'm okay. I’d decided to answer the feeling of a question before understanding the question itself.

My first solo shower postpartum wasn't eventful, but it could have been. I was three days out from an emergency C-section, still finding the edges of my own body again.

He went away after I shouted, so I decided I was right and he’d just been checking if I was okay in the hot water, or maybe he realised his question wasn't as important as, “are you ok” might have been. If it was actually something practical like where the leaky-breast shells were —not a spelling mistake, they're a real and slightly absurd piece of postpartum equipment— I've chosen to believe it was concern instead.

It's a small thing, choosing the kinder interpretation. But I've noticed I do it a lot here, maybe it’s an emotional survival mechanism, maybe it’s a learnt skill from Mexicans or other migrants.

Leaving the hospital, I looked back on the three days behind me. I'd walked in with a whole vision for a vaginal birth, every preference written down and scientifically backed in case I needed to debate it with a medical professional.

I walked out having had none of that. I’d had a C-section decided in the time it takes to boil an egg, in a language that’s not my first, in a hospital whose rhythms and unwritten rules I was still learning, even as they carried me through its corridors, even as I knew that we’d rejected this particular hospital for neglecting the humanistic practices we valued.

I asked my partner afterward whether he thought my gynecologist had been glad, on some level, to get a swift, decisive emergency instead of the long, uncertain hours of the birth I'd wanted. She'd seemed so supportive of my plan beforehand. I think I'll just live in ignorance of what she actually preferred. Better not to ask.

The bigger thing I'm still sitting with, though, is my baby’s time in the cunas section, the ICU, down the hall from my room, where the newborns went for stretches after birth. I was desperate for them to bring him to me. Every hour felt like something I was owed and not receiving.

I pushed eventually, after 10 hours. At first, I trusted that there was a clinical logic to it that I simply didn't have access to. Later, I didn’t care and began making demands. After 12 hours, he was placed on my chest like a little tree frog, luckily fully of my colostrum extracted drop by drop, and we both fell asleep just like that.

That initial trust [or hope?] that made me wait so many hours is a strange thing to notice in yourself, especially abroad.

I've talked to Mexican friends, women who grew up inside this same healthcare system, and they don't extend it the way I do. They question. They push back on doctors, ask for second opinions, assume that being kept in the dark is itself a kind of red flag.

I didn't grow up with that instinct. I grew up somewhere that taught me systems are basically competent until proven otherwise, and I carried that assumption across the border with me.

So when the nurses said baby needed more time under observation, I believed them, in the specific way that only someone desperately wanting to believe they’re in a good place for this experience can, and because trust was the default I'd never had reason to question. Surely, it’s still better not to know if the full 12h away from me were really necessary.

I don't know if that was naivety or privilege or just exhaustion. What I do know is that I could have spent those hours fighting to get my son into my arms sooner, interrogating every nurse, demanding explanations. Instead I waited, and told myself it was fine, the same way I told myself the knock on the door was concern and not something more mundane.

There's a version of me that wishes I'd asked harder questions. But there's another version, the one who was three days past surgery and barely able to stand, who's grateful she didn't have to carry the answer either way. Some things are lighter left unknown.

---

Want others to ask more questions in your culture? Maybe share this with someone who’d relate.