Trauma: Veins and Needles

Yesterday, we had IV insertion class/exam. Everyone passed the exam, and we're all relieved it's over. P.S. If you're at all like me and are one of those people whose stomach rolls and churns at even the thought of needles and blood *please* don't look at the last three pictures.

Our supplies....

We practiced on balloons first (the straw was the "vein"). During practice, there was a disconcerting amount of balloons exploding.

Inserting...we can do it!

Go Janelle!

It was a slightly traumatic experience for most....

A dizzy episode....

Yeah...we're all still friends no matter how much pain we inflicted on each other.

Hahaha...I laugh every time I see this picture. This was after it was all over; I was crying because I had hurt Serena, and I was just so happy that the IV was inside her vein and finished. :P

Wasn't quite so traumatic for Krys.... :)

Tiffany took SEVEN pokes for me because of what happened here. (She's tired of being thanked....but this is the last time..promise! Thank you!!) ;)

Yet, through the trauma, there was still a lot of smiling and laughing....





The following pictures are the ones you queasy people aren't supposed to look at!


Getting started.....


In the vein! There's flashback!


Yes! It's completely in!!

Class Picture

Finally! A picture with my entire class in it! We switched shifts with the second year students so that we would all be out of the birth room at the same time.

Back Row L-R: Naomi, Michelle, Bethany, Medea, Holly, Jess, Me
Front Row L-R: Janelle, Jenn, Stephanie, Serena, Sarah


The photography place whitened our skin when they edited our photos ("to make us look more beautiful"), but we didn't mind too much. :D

The photographer was saying, "Funny face! Make a funny face!" but apparently only a few of us heard him. ;)

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.

Mechanisms of Labor

We're in the middle of a crazy long assignment.

Status:
-85 questions total
-3 more days to finish up to question #52
-just finished question #41
-currently at 62 typed pages
-and who knows how many pages left to type

Serena and I decided to do some late night studying.


She gave up somewhere around "describing the mechanisms of labor (also known as the cardinal movements of the fetus)". She blames it on the fact that I stole all the books.....


Hmmmm, she just might have a point there...


And yet, through all this busyness, someone STILL had time to name all the eggs in our fridge :P

Karaoke

It's about time to post about something that is SO common here in the Philippines: KARAOKE!! A couple days ago, we went to K-1, a coffee shop with....karaoke rooms for Jenna's birthday.

Jenna loves karaoke and is aMaZInG at getting everyone else excited about it too.

Great fun...really loud, disco lights, lots of singing off-key.......perfect karaoke.


Lois' continuity, Celeste, came with her baby who was born at Mercy.

What's a good karaoke party without the YMCA song??? :D

Good times...

Night Shift

Hooray for night shifts! And fantabulous supervisors!! We're going to miss you Ate Elai. :(

Next to the what?!

Only in midwifery school...a conversation I had recently:

Me: Does anyone know where the book Holistic Midwifery Care During Labor and Birth, Volume II is?
Another Student: Ummmmmm, I think it's on the bookshelf.....next to the pelvis.

Outreach to the Bukid

Ok, outreach. There's so much to tell! Well, basically, it was great. We cleaned some boils, gave prenatal care, played with a ton of kids, ate rice at *every single* meal, killed a mouse that was in that rice, washed our hair in the rivers every day, nearly lost my voice when a cockroach dropped down my shirt, rode motorcycles for hours almost every day, saw plenty of gorgeous scenery, worked on Bisaya, learned some Minobo, and prayed...a lot.


Here we have the three girls from Mercy: Janelle, me, Charity

Our first night was spent at Ate Mary Jane's house. A midwife in some of the rural villages in the mountains, she was originally going to be the one who escorted us through the area. Sadly though, she miscarried the week before and needed to stay home. However, she was an amazing hostess, and we loved meeting her family. Her testimony, heart for God, and love for her people are incredible.

This is Ghang-Ghang, also a midwife who grew up in the area but now lives in Davao. She graciously took us to the villages instead of Mary Jane.

The pump outside of Mary Jane's house where most of the village gets their water and takes their baths.

All morning and evening, the young kids carry water from the pump to their homes (yikes! and I thought sweeping the floor was a horrible enough chore as a kid...)

Ready to head out...(this was the easiest day riding because we had an extra motorcyle)

"THEN the 'All Natural' coconut is shredded, packaged, and shipped to you." :P

Ummmm.......a little girl :D

We spent the next two days at a clinic just a 1.5 hours ride away from Mary Jane's house.

This little guy spent hours reading Where There is No Doctor. He has the same fascination I had with this book when I was his age...

Inday loved the stethoscope, and when any of the other kids tried to use it, she would very seriously say, "Okay, ooookay, share, SHARE." Really cute....

We started out with just a few kids...

And got more....

And more. And later we had many, many more, but at that point, it was too dangerous to pull out my camera because...

It became almost a frenzy with them trying to get in the photos. :P





Devotions

We were SO thankful for mosquito nets every night...

And plenty of young coconut!

The person taking this picture was just waiting for me to slip and fall in the mud again. :D This is where we washed our clothes and dishes.

These girls took us for a very long walk to see their village.

Rice fields

One of the rivers we swam in every day.

Hair washing party

Third village where we worked; we only stayed here for half a day. The prenatal room was sort of missing a wall... :D

Yes...there were people staring in from all sides the entire time. And we had about three people trying to translate our ridiculously horrible Bisaya into Minobo for each patient. It made for a lot of laughter.



Through each day, we remembered something Ate Mary Jane had told us on the first day at her house. "In over ten years of doing midwifery, I have never lost a baby or a mother during labor, delivery, or immediate postpartum. And I have nothing, no resources--no medicine to stop bleeding, no oxygen to help a baby breathe after birth. At least, it *seems* like I have nothing, but really, I have the most important thing: God. When a woman is bleeding to death, I pray. When a baby won't breathe, I pray. And God has blessed my job. He knows how difficult it is; He hears my prayers. And so, I continue."

Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol Him, all peoples! For great is His love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!
~Psalm 117