When my husband and I announced that we were expecting, I was surprised by the number of people who asked if I was going to stay in Iceland or go back to Canada to deliver the baby.

Seeing as how I am from Canada, I suppose the question is completely logical. But to be honest, I never considered giving birth anywhere other than here. I have lived in Reykjavík longer than I have lived in any other city which makes this place feel more like home to me than anywhere else.

Of course in an ideal world, all of my family would take my lead and relocate to Iceland as well, but unfortunately I can’t see that happening any time soon. Phone and internet will have to continue to suffice as a means of keeping in touch with everyone across the ocean while the belly expands.

So far the experience of being with child in Iceland has been a good one. Although I was very much at ease with having a baby in a “far away land,” there have been some things that I’ve had to take into consideration that I wouldn’t normally have had to if I’d been expecting in my own country.

The potential hurdles that concerned me with not only being a foreigner, but a pregnant foreigner, were mostly language related.

My Icelandic has come a long way in the past five years, but when it comes to conversations about the birth and the baby, I wanted to be sure that I was getting much more than the gist of what was being said.

In Iceland, pregnant women are each assigned a midwife who takes care of all of the prenatal check-ups over the course of the pregnancy. I am happy to report that we lucked out on the midwife front; our experience with her has been excellent and thankfully she doesn’t mind switching back and forth between English and Icelandic during our appointments.

The next task was finding and registering for pre-natal classes in English. These classes are available but they’re offered rather infrequently and fill up very quickly. With a heads-up provided by my fellow Canadian friend who was also expecting, I managed to register in the nick of time.

I should add that even though my name was on the sign-up sheet, it wasn’t always a certainty that this particular course would be offered. As it turns out, the teacher was on maternity leave. Go figure.

Although I’m still not clear about how or if my maternity leave will be impacted by the recently proposed changes, I found the actual application for leave to be straightforward. The website [http://www.faedingarorlof.is/] offers information and applications in English, as well as a link to some useful information for international parents offered through the Red Cross.

Even though we still have a few months to go before the stork’s visit, ensuring that the baby has dual citizenship is on the top of my list of things to do.

I have already stopped by the embassy to pick up the forms that need to be filled out for the baby to receive its Canadian citizenship and judging by the length of the application booklet, it will be good to have some time to read through it.

All in all, I think the relative ease of finding resources and information about childbirth in languages other than Icelandic is a testament to how this country continues to change and adapt to the needs of its increasing number of multicultural residents.

That being said, I consider myself lucky to have an Icelandic husband who can help me wade through the Icelandic text which has often been necessary in order to point me towards the translations I need. Childbirth is overwhelming enough as it is without feeling lost in the language.

But who knows, by the time child number two comes along maybe I will be able to navigate through the Icelandic myself. However, in the meantime, it’s sure nice to know that help is available if I need it.

Alana Odegard – odegard_a@hotmail.com