Coming Soon!!

Why?

This is why I do what I do....why I want to be a midwife.

Childbirth in Tanzania

Inn of Sixth Happiness

Still here in Tabuk at what we like to call the "Inn of 6th Happiness"

Got to deliver this CUTE little guy one of my first days here. Although he was his mom Martha's tenth baby, he was well loved!! His parents let me name him after my brother Jacob.

We visited Martha and Jacob twice at their home. Such a beautiful family!
Anyway...life is great here....even livin' with da crazies...

Blessings of Children

Traveled to a village for the day to do prenatals. Taught devotions on how women can bless their unborn babies.

Singing, joking, storytelling, laughing, snacking, talking, loving.

Healthy women. Healthy kids.

Women tell us, "We don't like to use family planning here....just family planting."

Pastor and his wife. He wished for a dozen children. He has six....and grandchildren.Shocked face when found out I'm from a dozen children. :)

Children ARE a blessing

First homebirth AND First white baby

Sometimes I think I have the best job in the world. I got to deliver these gorgeous kids' little sister.




Seriously....can it get any better?

But the midwives feared God...so God dealt well with the midwives...And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families."

And she's back!

Yes! This MIA writer for Siblings United has returned to the blogging hemisphere after triumphantly conquering a 3 week monster of an assignment--76 pages (reformatted down from 102 pages) of agonized over information--just some of the complications possible in labor and how to manage them. Oh pain. But oh so interesting. I love my job :)



Aaaaand....we FINished Anatomy and Physiology and are now taking Analytical Writing...definitely starting to feel like I'm on the homestretch.


This past month was just the usual:

More babies

More happy families

Neonatal resuscitation...gotta save those babies!

A Filipino/American wedding

A closer look at the lovely balut (no WONDER they only sell these things at night when it's dark :P )


And of course, God is good. He never ceases to amaze me.

Have you not know? Have you not heard?The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. he gives power to the faint, and to Him who has no might He increases strength.

Isaiah 40:28-29

September

A little bit of September...

Textbooks, textbooks, and....textbooks

When we get bored of assignment and textbooks...

Semester exam....we weren't nervous...oh no, not in the least. *ahem*

Trying to sleep on a slow night shift

Lots and lots of paperwork and charting

Teaching Dads how to give a baby bath...hehe.

My continuity, Dayday (also known as Norie). Delivering her baby was definitely a highlight of September. Dayday was born with extremity deformities, so she has no hands and only one leg, but she is one of the sweetest women I have ever met. And her baby was a perfectly beautiful baby girl.

You can imagine how thrilled she and her husband were! Such an answer to prayer.

She let me name her baby--Rachel Noelle. Rachel: after an awesome sister of mine =). And Noelle: a mix of Dayday's real name, Norie and her husband's name, Emmanuelle.

Going home after a Dayday's birth--2:30am

Dayday--3 days postpartum

Another continuity this month, Gina, had a lot of complications and had to deliver in the hospital. Everything went well though, and I was able to visit her a few times in the hospital. She and her baby are home and doing well now.

5:30am cross channel swim with people from church and girls from Mercy Maternity.

fun fun.....

Until one of the girls was stung by a jellyfish :( Super painful...but she's ok now. And it's true, vinegar works wonders.

Celebrating a birthday :)

On shift, double baby duty

Double Baby Day

It all started at 6:12 AM when I delivered little Ryan Angel, the third son of this beautiful family who absolutely adored him.

A few hours later, just when I finished with the newborn exam, bath, immunizations, paperwork, patient log books, and birth certificate for little Ryan, another expecting mom, Nora Naninunan, came into the clinic.

Less than ten minutes later, I delivered yet another screaming little guy, and his family is completely different from little Ryan's family. His mom has nothing....and I mean nothing. She had no diapers, no baby clothes, no baby soap, no breakfast, no clean clothes to change into after birth...nothing. And she lives in Isla Verde (I've written about Isla Verde here "Grasping for Words"). It breaks my heart to see women like Nora with husbands who won't or truly *can't* get jobs, who have nothing, and have no way of providing for their families.

On the birth certificate, although Nora did not know how to sign her own name (we used thumb prints), she was proud to let me know that she was a "born again Christian"...and could I please put that on the certificate? *Such* a sweet lady.

This is Nora's tenth child (although three of her children were premature and died at a very young age), and she asked me to name him. Her other sons were named Matil, Tamil, and Tatil, so we decided to go with something a little different and named him Taylor (after my brother of course :). Taylor Piping Naninunan.

Now, although this was quite the privilege, it was also sad. Taylor is an unwanted baby...another mouth to feed. He'll be going to Nora's sister (the woman sitting next to Nora in the picture above) who only has three children and will be able to better care for him.

We gave Nora baby clothes and diapers from our stash of donated supplies, but I wish we could do so much more for her. This was poverty beyond my American mind's ability to even comprehend.

Katitipan Visit

This week, Janelle and I went about an hour away to visit her continuity, Candy, and her family.














They cooked us a fabulously delicious meal of chicken, dried fish, vegetables (okra, eggplant, and pumpkin), and rice.


And sang hours of karaoke...


Janelle singing...ahem....true Filipino karaoke :D


We got the chance to meet some other people in the town, and some of the guys climbed a tree and gathered a bag of the fruit santol (similar to mangosteen)for us to take home.

Great day....we'll be back in a couple of weeks to do prenatals on all the buntis ladies there.

Shocker of the Year

Last week, after delivering her baby, my patient coughed up and spit out this 8" worm. And if there is one worm, there are many, many more. And the worst part is that she said she coughed up a worm with her last baby (which was over three years ago!), so she has had them for quite some time.

We agreed to pay for her and her family to be treated, but she has completely disappeared and has not come back for any checkups.

Please pray for Mer and her family--that she will show up at Mercy Clinic again sometime soon and that these worms do not lead to any other complications.

The Twins: Sweetie and Cutie...

...not pertaining to Taylor and Jacob. :) While I love my brothers and they are definitely sweet and cute, I think they would throttle me if I called them Sweetie and Cutie. (It might even be worse than Taylor the Latte Boy.) So this is a post about twins, but not about my sweet, cute twin brothers.

Technically, we aren't allowed to deliver twins at Mercy Maternity, but these little girls surprised us. Sadly though, their mom hemorrhaged after birth and had to be emergency transported to the hospital. Naomi, who is one of the "marrieds" and delivered the twins, took the them home and babysat them all week while their mom recovered. Praise the Lord...their mom is ok now and has her babies with her at home.

The twins weighed 3 pounds and 5 pounds (plus some ounces...I can't remember the exact numbers).

Both are doing very well....so tiny but so perfect.

The larger is named Sweetie, and the smaller: Cutie (yes, those are their names on the birth certificate :).

Please pray that they will continue to thrive and that their mom will be able to regain her strength quickly.