Adesina is back!

Some of you may remember my Nigerian Continuity who I took care of last year. She and her husband, Richard were here in the RP in Bible School, and she got pregnant and needed medical care. She didn't speak any Visayan, so she needed to be someone's continuity.

A few months before she delivered, Adesina and Richard had visa problems and had to return to Nigeria to figure it out. Since she was only a few months from delivering, she would deliver there. I knew they were planning to return, but hadn't heard from them in a while, so when she texted me saying they were back with their son, we immediately arranged for them to come to the clinic and visit.














It was a wonderful time, Jedidiah is so big now, 6 months almost and 18 pounds! Many of the midwives around remembered Adesina, and were amazed to meet her son. She said the birth still went very well, and now she is happy to be back here (she really didn't like it when she was pregnant!) and is even learning a little Visayan. She is a wonderful mom.

New Carmen Outreach

With the new church I attend called His Mission Christian Fellowship (HMCF), I was given the opportunity to go to a place about 1 hour outside of the city called New Carmen. The people that live there used to live directly on a huge mountain made up of garbage. They would collect tin cans and plastic items hoping to make up to 100 pesos a day or a little less than $2 to feed their families. These people had never been trained in farming or any other way to make money.

The FIRE team (the leaders of HMCF church) started working out in New Carmen a few years ago, and the government had not yet gone out there to do the cleanup that is now in process. The people were still living directly on top of the garbage and had no access to steady income, education or medical care.

When Mike (a leader of FIRE team) came in to New Carmen on outreaches, he met a Filipino man who owned land on another mountain nearby, and when this man knew that Mike really had a heart for the people, he told him that he had had a dream a while back that a white man would come into the area and need land for the people to relocate to. He then gave this land to Mike and wouldn't take any money for it at all!

Now, the whole village has been moved there, and houses slowly have been built through the support of many many people and teams coming in who built homes for these people. They have a church there now and a small school where Grace (the Filipina who invited me to come to New Carmen) teaches first grade. They can only teach preschool and 1st grade now, and can't accept students older than 10 years old because they don't have enough staff or teaching supplies/space. They hope to slowly expand the school to educate more of the kids. Many of these people do not read or write.

The government is in the process of building a processing plant over the covered up mountain of garbage which will hopefully in the next year be up and running and will process the garbage so that this will not happen again.

Grace had asked me to buy some worm medicine if I could for the kids, because some of them for sure needed it really badly, and that started my adventure trying to find it at an affordable price. The first price quoted to me was one dose for $3. If I had wanted to treat only a few children, that would have been fine, but not for the 60 kids that needed medicine. So I enlisted the help of Joe Germain who is the husband of one of our midwives at Mercy, and he directed me to a store that sold in bulk. I ended up being able to buy 32 bottles for only $10!!! God is so good to provide the medicine and the money with which I bought it. To my supporters: You guys are directly responsible for providing this medicine to the children of this village, so thank you for your faithfulness.

I was accompanied by Michelle who is a 1st year midwife at Mercy, and we did open-air prenatals on about 15 women all in different stages of pregnancy. It was their first prenatal this pregnancy, and will be their last unless I am able to return. Some were 7 months pregnant, others were not as far along. They all have their babies at home with only their families attending them. Please pray with me that God will help me to know what my role is in helping these women. My heart breaks for them, and I want so badly to do what I can, but I also want to do it only if this is what God has for me.

One of the ladies Michelle did a prenatal on she found to have extremely high blood pressure - 180/110! This lady - Vicky Rizal, thought she was about 6 months pregnant, but neither Michelle or I could find fetal heart tones, or palpate a baby. We talked with her about her dates, and figured she might be 4 months along, but because of her high blood pressure and the fact that we couldn't find fetal heart tones, I asked Vicky to come to Davao with me to be checked out by the doctor. She couldn't afford it, so I told her I would pay for her medical expenses which turned out me paying for her labs, her transportation and food. Once again - to my supporters, this was your support allowing me to do this for Vicky.

Vicky ended up not being pregnant at all, and the lab tests turned out to be close to normal, one doctor found her blood pressure to be 160/100, but the next found it to be 140/90 which is only borderline high blood pressure, so he and I just gave her advice to keep it low and what to watch for so she would know if she needed to see a doctor.

If anyone has questions about this outreach at all, please email me. Blessings.

Busy Birthroom!

When Sarah, Michelle (1st year girls) and I arrived at 5:50am, all seemed very quiet, but that changed quickly. This turned out to be one of the busiest shifts I have had in a very long time!

At about 6:05am a mom pregnant with her 3rd came in and said, "no I can't go to the bathroom, the baby is coming!" So we rushed her to the bed, and sure enough a handsome little boy joined us at 6:23am!

Then, just as things were settling down, another girl walked in, but this was her first baby, and she barely looked pregnant (sound familiar mom?) She said she felt like the baby was coming, but she had a big UTI which makes contractions seem worse than they really are so my supervisor sent her to the bathroom anyway. She came right back out, not having been able to pee, laid down on the bed, and once again, not long after her little baby Angle Norraine joined us! She was so beautiful. Her mom's tummy was just barely pregnant looking (several cm's smaller than we like to see at her gestation) so when her baby came out, her stomach was actually concave! Angel's dad was amazing - bringing a towel to support the mom's arm while she breastfed and singing to his baby!

While I was assisting in this birth, Sarah checked in a labor for me. Sarah sent her outside to walk around until I could do her internal exam, and we both expected to send her home because it seemed she was in latent labor. First baby also. However, to our surprise, she was already 8cm and the baby's head was incredibly low (which means it won't take long to dilate the rest of the way!) I was blown away!

So I continued to check in with Ai-Ai (short for Aires) and did 2 baby checks. As I was doing the 2nd one, the guard said "Labor! - Active!" Yikes! We tried to find Ate May since she was next up, but couldn't, so we asked her to pee even though I didn't think that was a good idea at this point, and then brought her inside. She was fully, and Sarah was all set to catch her baby when Ate May came in and took over :) She had a few complications, I continued to assist Ate May while waiting for Sarah to finish her baby check up. This lady's blood pressure was high (130/100), but when Sarah took over I ran out to try and do my other baby check up. I managed to get in a consise teach in on family planning because this was her last check up and she had no idea what method she wanted to use. Just as I was finishing the teaching, I was called in to insert an IV. I prayed so hard as I was preparing it because I knew she needed the IV fast and my last shift I had blown 2 insertions so I was nervous. But I asked God to really steady my hand and help me, and that is exactly what He did! I got it in the first try without Ate May right there guiding my hand! I think this is the first time that I inserted an IV all on my own and really felt like I knew what I was doing! Praise God! I ran back out after inserting the IV sent my baby check home, and then Ai-Ai wanted to push!

Wow. So I went back inside and although head was visible, she had a cervical lip and I tried so hard to work with her on positions so that she could control the urge to push until it was gone, but it was so hard, she just had to push. She ended up birthing on the birthstool, and it was a good birth, but she still had 2 small tears and needed to be sutured. The placenta needed some "coaxing" to get it out completely, and we had to give pitocin to control the bleeding, but otherwise it went well.

At this point it is heading on towards 1:30... I did another baby check up in between my 5 minute checks and then the new midwives for the next shift started to show. I ended up staying past shift a bit to continue paperwork and get it all as organized as possible for Laura who continued Ai-Ai's care. As I was finally leaving, another labor walked in and had her baby within 10 minutes!

I had had only coffee for breakfast, and no lunch yet, so I grabbed some leftovers really quick and went up to class where we were supposed to share on a midwife we had researched. (meaning Laura - who was extremely busy in the birthroom and Tiffany whose continuity had just delivered!) So that didn't happen, instead I listened to other people's presentations and we will present next time.

Phew. Sorry about the longness (not a word I know) for this post, but I couldn't make it short, it would have taken the excitement away. I got home at about 4pm and laid down to take a short nap until dinner, but ended up sleeping through it and eating leftovers again at 7:30pm! I love my life :)

About the pics:
Top: Ate Chi-Chi giving her daughter a bath in the laundry area - just too cute.
Middle: Sophia Hope, my continuities' baby (Emilou Maghinay) It was her 3rd day bb check.
Bottom: Aires (Ai-Ai) and her almost husband (Darwin) and their baby.

Maghinay Family

Yesterday was a very long day, but eventually rewarding. Emilou has been my continuity since the very beginning when I became her midwife on the first day she came to prenatals. We had become friends through the many months of pregnancy. Most of her pregnancy was uncomplicated, but then at about 34 weeks her baby turned breech, and didn't seem inclined to move to a cephalic position. We tried our best to convince her - we did external version a few times and Emilou was amazing at doing knee-chest position exercises everyday, but when those things weren't working I knew God was going to have to the convincing, and we prayed. To my absolute delight, at her last prenatal before labor, little Sophia Hope had turned cephalic!

Emilou labored all weekend, and we stayed in touch, but she did most of it at home. She did come to the clinic yesterday at 9am and from there, she labored mostly at the clinic where I was. Her husband was a trooper, he had worked through the night last night, so was very tired, but was a great support for his wife.

Although the labor took a long time, there weren't any complications, and I was glad she was able to labor in a safe environment where the pace was unhurried by medical interventions. Then, at around 12: 30am, Emilou wanted to push, and not long after that, their 3rd girl, Sophia Hope joined us. She has to be one of the most beautiful baby that I have seen in a long time!

Emilou kept bleeding through her postpartum checks, but after some pitocin, it stopped and we were golden once again. I was very glad to have been there for Emilou, she is a Christian as far as I can see from the way she prays and talks about her faith. If I hadn't been her midwife, she would have been transferred from shift to shift, having had at least 3 different care givers, and this way she didn't have to get used to new people each time new people came on shift.

2 Drivers Licenses for me!

The only ones who drive around MMC are the guards and Matt and Krys, so M&K asked us gals in the 2nd year if we would be willing/interested in getting our Philippine DL's!. Of course we were all interested!

Laura and I went to the Land Transportation Office and waited in the most interesting lines to get this shiny new card to add to the ones in my wallet. We were there for most of the afternoon, and it was hot outside waiting, but an adventure none-the-less.

And now, I not only get to drive stick shift in a country where so far all I have gotten to do is ride public transportation, but I get to teach some of the girls like Laura who is excited to learn manual. Of course other than teaching the girls driving, we only get to drive on official Mercy business, so like a transport to the hospital or something like that, but it's fun to have none the less.

Oh yeah - and the best part of it all? When I told my dad I got my RP DL, he said, "Cool, so we were about the same age when we both got it!" He got his RP DL when he was 26 living here, and I just got it and I am 25! So funny.

January Statistics:

I had a little bit of time on a shift right around the turn of the New Year, so I decided to tally up my births and see how they compared to each other. I felt before I did the tallies that I had so many more births for moms who had given birth before (Mulitparas) but it turned out that all my numbers were pretty close to each other. I then compared a few other points. It was quite fun to do, so I thought I would share my findings with you.

Multiparas = 32 total
Primiparas = 24 total

Babies less than 7 lbs. = 29 total
Babies more than 7 lbs. = 26 total

Moms equal to or less than 21 years of age = 27 total
Moms older than 21 = 24 total
Moms 35 years and older =4 total

New Year Baby!

So I didn't deliver the first 2008 Mercy baby, but I did deliver the first girl at Mercy in the year of 2008! I was first up to receive a labor, and was endorsed a mom who was pregnant with her 3rd, (they usually don't show up until they are almost ready to have their babies) but this one was barely in labor, so since it was a slow morning, we let her stay, but the chances were slim that she would have her baby on my shift (and I really wanted a New Year's baby).

Another labor came in a few hours later, but it was the same situation! 5th pregnancy, 4th baby, but in very early labor! So weird. But when I was about to lose all hope, Sarah (who was 3rd up) got a labor who couldn't even go to the bathroom cause she was about to pop the baby out! Sarah had just had a very busy shift the day before, and needed rest, not another baby, so we switched labors, and it worked out perfectly.

Lailane (or Inday) laid down on the bed, I ran out to grab my blood pressure cuff so I could get at least a few of her vitals, and was outside when Tiffany called out "head visible!" Yikes! So I ran back in and really worked with her on her breathing so that I could get gloves on and a pad under her before her baby joined us. Inday named her baby Clear, and they made a beautiful family.

Welcome Year 2008!

Last year we went to Claude's (a nice French restaurant) and all the girls got really dressed up and we got a private room. It was so much fun, that we decided to make it a tradition and did it again this year.

The girls started getting ready early... I went out with Jes and Michelle to buy some hot shoes (look at the picture of my shoe - it is hot!) and got pedicures. Then, we went home, I did Naomi's hair, took a shower, did my own hair, and then around 4pm all the other girls started getting ready and the party began.

We left the house in shifts, those of us who did other's people's hair and make-up (i.e. me and Lois) left a little later than the first group. I left last, going next door to pick up Shannon and Nikki who are team members of FIRE (I go to their church). It was so much fun getting to know them better.

Dinner was absolutely amazing - we don't go out like this hardly ever, but New Years was a good time to make an exception, and we partied it up good. Great dinner, great conversations and lots of laughing. Jenna even made an awesome New Year's game which included telling truths about ourselves, decoding carols, and making New Year's resolutions. So much fun.

After we left the restaurant, a few of the girls had night shift, so a couple of us went to the clinic with them and ate snacks (amazing we had room!) took fun pictures and learned about animals and their reproductive patterns (interesting I know, but we are midwives). Then we did the countdown and played with sparklers our neighbors were nice enough to share with us.