Public Patience

I have recently begun my antenatal classes. My husband and I went to the hospital where the classes are, sat there with 10 other couples wide eyed as we watched the video on labour. After our tea and sandwiches (we live in the country of tea-breaks) we toured the hospital and got to see the delivery rooms and then the rooms where women stay after they've delivered. Here is where my gripe begins.
I am living in a country far far from my home. I have given up good milkshakes for yummy cookies, and being able to use the word "fanny" with reckless abandon. It's very difficult to find a full-time job here, so I have also given up any earning potential I had. But, I have not yet felt the things that I have given up as keenly as I do now. Being pregnant in this, my foreign home, has brought me bags full of "surrender". I was ever so excited about socialized medicine when I got here and didn't have to pay for Doctor's visits...but now... I am a public pregnant patient. I had dreams of using a midwife to follow me through my pregnancy, someone who understood that I was a first time mother... I have no idea how one does it here. So I have surrendered that dream to a gruff and non-conversant OBGYN who answers "yes" by silence, and "no" with simply "no". Too many patients, no time for explanations...
Evidently my concept of my hospital stay, also will be "surrendered". Here you pay for T.V. and phone usage, you give birth in a single room but could get booted anytime after 4 hours after birth and transfered to a double or quadroople room with only a curtain between you and your neighbour and not even a door between you and the main hallway. Well, I am a public patient after all.