34-year old woman from, Lattakia, Syria,
I want to share my experience with raising my two kids in Sweden instead of in Syria.
I’m from Lattakia in Syria, like my husband. Every woman dreams of having children, and some people get kids right after marriage, while some people wait a little. After we married, we decided to wait a little to have kids, because we wanted to get to know each other better first.
And when we finally decided that we were ready to start a family, then it was not in God’s plan that I should become pregnant. I started to see some doctors and make tests, but the doctors said everything looked fine, but still I could not get pregnant.
When we arrived in Sweden, I was thinking about going to see a doctor again. They told me that I had to wait until I had stayed in Sweden at least one year until I could see a specialist for this matter and talk about treatments. It had to be a whole year, they said, because the body needs to adjust to the new weather and milieu. So I waited a year. And here is the story that I always love to tell: After exactly one year I went to the doctor, and she said she would send me to the hospital to have a fertility treatment.
We decided to make this treatment, and they wrote some documents for this. When I was about to go, the doctor just said, “wait, let me just take a small test, just because I need to write in the papers that a made a test before we send you to the treatment.” And when she made the test she couldn’t believe what she saw. The doctor started saying: “Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, mashaallah, mashaallah”. I got afraid that there was something wrong – it was quite funny actually. Then she said: You are pregnant. It was so funny and great that we didn’t make the treatment yet, but they just figured out that I was pregnant when preparing the documents for the treatment. My husband called me after this. My appointment in the hospital had taken more time than he expected, and I was crying. He first got afraid that something was wrong, but I told him while crying: I’m pregnant.
Now my boy is 2 years old. We called him Adam Fawaz, and he just got a younger brother, Daniel.
Before, I always expected that when I get my first child, then I will be close to my family and they will be there to help me out, and play with him and help raise him. It is our tradition that family is important and that kids will be close with their grandparents.
Now instead, I got my children after coming to Sweden, far away from my family, but it is also good, because the kids will have a healthy childhood/raise, and they will be safe because there is no war. There is no reason to worry for the children’s safety here. I’m thankful that I got my children after arriving here. Some people had to flee together with their children across the sea, and some died in the sea because they wanted to come here and raise their kids here, but I was already here when I got my children. I feel like it is a gift from God that it happened like that, and I’m very thankful. Sweden is a lovely country, and I love to see my kids grow up here.