Lois this is for you!

Making hummus at home turned into a family effort! I found garbanzo beans with Rebecca's help at the Super Walmart, then the twins were instrumental in helping me shell all of them as the rest of the family groaned at the effort it took. Then Rebecca and my dad went to a different grocery store to find me the Tahini that I needed, then our blender/food processor just wasn't cutting it so my mom bought a new one at walmart! Yikes. Good thing the hummus turned out good - of course that was a given seeing as my teacher was amazing! Thanks Lois! :) Loves to you.

Hellos are much better!

My last post was hard to write, but this one is so much nicer. I was welcomed home after a pretty smooth non-eventful flight - except for a nice pat down upon arrival on US soil and all my bags searched, but nothing was taken so that was nice.

My whole family (including the dog!) plus my roomate, Heather - from Bethany days - was there to greet me and it was wonderful. Hugs all around and I LOVED it! A big shout out goes to my dad who shared his "thunder" with me by scheduling me to arrive home on the day of his birthday. So we celebrated my return and his birthday with an amazing steak meal made at home.

I was sleepy that afternoon, but my parents and family kept me occupied so I didn't sleep - in fact, I didn't go to bed that night until 11pm! Pretty good for jet lag! I slept until 5:30am with the help of two melatonins.

Then, yesterday, we had about 40 people over to the house for hamburger grill out, family and friends alike so I wouldn't be hard up trying to say hi to everyone before vacation and the NARM and what not. It was wonderful. Thanks mom and dad for putting that on for me.

Today we shop and pack for vacation. Yesterday I drove to Walmart and let my 15 year old sister who has a permit drive me home. I almost had a nervous breakdown when she didn't know which way to turn the wheel out of the parking space, but otherwise she did great - she even talks to the other drivers like I do!

Tomorrow - Vacation, study for the NARM, vacation, study :) Hugs and kisses to all those in Davao - most of you have written goodbye blogs or posts or chatted saying there is sadness and holes now that a few of us are gone, and we (or at least I) feel the same way. I am so happy to be home, but at the same time I tear up randomly when i think of life in Davao and what I am missing. I suppose it will get better with time....

Goodbyes are hard...

3 of us have bitten the dust so to speak. Laura left first on Sunday afternoon, then Tiffany left that same evening and now I am writing this blog from my hotel in Manila where I will leave from to board my flight back to the US bright and early tomorrow morning.
I hate goodbyes. I sometimes wonder what God was thinking when he asked me to be a missionary when this life involves so many goodbyes. O.k. granted, there aren't many people that enjoy saying goodbye, but some people are better at it than others and I am not one of those others.

I managed not to cry too hard during the actual goodbye part - I think I was so prepared to cry that I just didn't allow it - I knew it was a strong possibility and so I just didn't allow it, but there were other times when my guard was down and I wasn't prepared to say goodbye when the tears would come.

This may very well be the most depressing entry I have written! Goodness. I should stop before I start crying again while typing away on my computer in the lobby of the hotel all by myself...

To those I have left behind - I love you so much and I know that God will continue to use you mightily - please keep me updated on the goings on of MMC - I will need to live vicariously through you for a while until I get accustomed to life back home. Thank you for all you have invested in me - all the love and patience - who knew you would make a midwife out of me!

Marco Polo Breakfast!

As a graduation present/surprise, our wonderful, amazing, incredible (I could keep going) directors, Matt and Krys (hope you are reading this!) gave our whole class gift certificates to have the breakfast brunch at the fanciest hotel in town - the Marco Polo.

We had so much fun really being girls - we even went around the table and everyone said what they thought person x would be doing in the near future, long term, what her husband would look like, when she would have kids, what/when her wedding would be/look like etc. I haven't ever done that before but boy was it fun!
So a big shout out to our amazing, wonderful (opps i said all that already) directors. We LOVE you!!!

Last MMC delivery for 2008

Lyn was a miracle birth in my opinion. Not only for me - because my goal was to deliver 92 babies and so I took an extra shift (thanks TK), but for her since she was endorsed to me at 2pm with transport papers prepared! That is never a good sign, but I was allowed to work with her and monitor her for a little bit of time and her high blood pressure went down and stayed down even without IV fluids or anything like that - she just needed someone to calm her down some and to have a little time to relax from getting to MMC - she had just arrived minutes before day shift ended and I arrived on shift. She was also leaking water and only 2cm - also not a good combo, but she drank castor oil like a champ (which I don't think I could ever do) and her labor progressed like you wouldn't believe!

Not only did she deliver before my shift ended (which she needed to in order to avoid transport) but she delivered at 8:12pm meaning I was able to spend some of the postpartum time with her. She, like Meira delivered a big baby - 8.12lbs, and it was complicated, but she stayed for some extra time (discharged the following morning about 24 hours after birth instead of the customary 6 hours) and was fine.

I saw both her and Meira for the last baby checks I would be able to do for them this morning before going to the airport for Manila and it was wonderful to be able to say goodbye in person.

Meira Ablanque

Last April I was Meira's midwife - but almost didn't catch her baby (who is now 1 year old - see pic on the left) because I was in class and then came down and was doing a few baby checks (she was supposedly only 4cm) when i was called in quickly because "the baby was coming!" We only had time to introduce ourselves after the birth, but still managed to enjoy our time together for the 6 weeks following the birth when she came in for postpartum visits.

When I found out she was pregnant again, she was already 34 weeks along, and due right around the time I was leaving but I really wanted to try and be her midwife again, so I put my name on her chart (thus establishing continuity of care). However, she was on a different prenatal day and it turned out to be very complicated to change her to my team due to miscommunications...

I almost didn't persevere - almost said it was ok if she wasn't my patient, but in the end she was moved to my team, and i still was able to do 2 prenatals with her before she delivered. And they were good ones. Then, of course it was so much better for me to be with her during birth because we had the relationship established instead of a random midwife being assigned to her.

The birth was wonderful! She progressed through labor quite quickly, and breathed through the last hour allowing her to open completely (which is insanely difficult I am told!) and the birth happened slowly. We all knew her baby was big but since this was her fourth, we weren't worried - her last baby (the one I delivered) was 8.02lbs and this boy was 8.10lbs! (very big by Filipino standards!)

There was shoulder dystocia, but only for a minute and with help from my assistant/supervisor (Ate Susan) there were no complications sustained to the baby.

Look carefully at the picture to the side - Meira is not only nursing her own baby (on the bottom) but I brought in the baby of another mother (delivered a few hours previous) to breastfeed because his mother was at the hospital having been transported for something - she was such a trooper - I held the top baby up and she was the hero of the day!

Tacada Outing

Many of you know Rachel Tacada who has been a good friend of mine since the beginning of my time here - I delivered her baby - my 14th handle (I am at 90 now) and so this is one friendship that is hard to say goodbye to. I took Rachel and her sisters and sister in law out for lunch with their kids as part of my goodbye. It was alot of fun. We did lunch, then we went to the mall and set up an email/msn account for Rachel so that we can stay in contact even though I am going home! Yay.