By the time you read this I’ve either just had my baby, am giving birth or am about to (my due date is Christmas Day). I might also possibly be in an ambulance, stuck in snowdrift somewhere between Blönduós and Akureyri, the so-called Capital of the North.

It isn’t that unlikely, really, it happened to a friend of mine. Her daughter was born in an ambulance parked somewhere in the blizzard-stricken Öxnadalur valley just outside Akureyri. In mid-May!

One should simply not have babies in Iceland except during the summer months. Unless one lives in close proximity to a hospital with a maternity ward, that is, and there aren’t that many in Iceland, especially not outside the greater Reykjavík area.

(Which is as right as rain, given that this is where the vast majority of Iceland’s 300,000-something population lives.)

And if you are having a difficult pregnancy, if there is any chance you might need a Cesarean section or that there will be other complications, you are even less spoilt for choice.

You might as well rent an apartment near the hospital in Akureyri or the Landspítali in Reykjavík, Iceland’s National Hospital, weeks in advance, just to be on the safe side.

My daughter was born at Landspítali almost three years ago, and I would not mind going back. Although the midwives there have been even busier than usual lately.

As Nanna has put it: “Iceland’s knocked up.” It generally is—Jonas once called Iceland the “aggressively pregnant nation”—but it’s even more so in 2009.

By the end of this year, a record-breaking number of babies will have been born at (financially strapped) Landspítali. And despite the increase of births, the working hours of midwives were reduced for money-saving purposes.

I might just have to share a delivery room as well as a midwife with other women and leave as soon as the child has arrived, should I decide to go to Reykjavík instead of the hospital in Akureyri.

(Which, or so I’ve been told, has a less crowded and more homely maternity ward, besides being closer to Blönduós.)

Then again, why not? Compared to what giving birth in Iceland in the good old days was like—and still is in many parts of the world—it would still be luxury.

I read a collection of reminiscences of and about Icelandic midwives in the 19th century recently, and those were horrible tales.

Women gave birth in unheated rooms in cramped turf houses in the middle of nowhere, the bedding frozen to the wall, either all by themselves or surrounded by farmhands, family members and/or the district midwife—if she made it in time.

Given that midwives usually had to travel a long distance on horseback or on foot, often in bad weather, they didn’t always arrive before the babies did.

Needless to say, mothers frequently died in childbed—if not when having their first, second or third baby, then maybe when having number 13.

Considering this, the ambulance stuck in a snowdrift in Öxnadalur valley doesn’t seem that uncomfortable after all. But because I had an emergency C-section with my daughter, I can’t really risk staying too far away from an operating room around the time of my due date.

Which means my boyfriend and I might have to spend Christmas in a hotel or at someone else’s house in either capital—Akureyri or Reykjavík—when our Icelandic family is celebrating at home in the countryside. Sigh.

So, if you’re planning on having a baby in Iceland and live in the country, take my advice: Spend the spring and summer months apart. Don’t even think about procreation in March and April! (Any day around Christmas Day is not a good birthday anyway, is it?) Have babies during the summertime, when road and weather conditions are in your favor.

That said, all is well that ends well. I’m excited...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Katharina Schneider – kath.schneider@googlemail.com