week twenty nine - Labour Ward

believe this will be the first blog that i’ll write on sunday, and upload sunday as well! (okay monday, but close enough!) a tad sunburnt at the moment from spending the day yesterday hanging out by a pool and tired from a night spent awake. why? you might ask was i awake all night long? well, African’s are party people. they also LOVE to to play LOUD music. and this loud music lasts alllllllllllll night long. therefore i was awake alllllllllll night long. but i was grateful that i could sleep in this morning. its choose your own church. so me and naomi had home church and listened to a sermon together. other than church i’ll need to get online to upload this, and then study for my test and do pre-reading for lectures tomorrow. but for now let me give you an update on this past week.

monday- lectures once again. still focusing on obstructed labour. then it was my week in the labour ward! and what a week it was. first day i delivered while the women was on all fours. usually the hospital staff do not approve of this and they very assertively request the women to be on her back. but i suppose because i was there beside her and she was in so much incredible pain laying down that they left her. during one of her contractions i felt the need to ‘check’ and see if anything was coming, and yes indeed the head was on its way, i gloved up and called for my staff and she came just in time as i was helping the little girl come into the world! a lot of more details i could include but i won’t for the sake of those reading who prefer not to hear all those yummy details! tuesday as well i delivered a beautiful baby girl, although her apgar was not good. (apgar is a score we give the baby based on how there doing after 1 min/5 min birth. the score is out of 10, with 2 points given to ‘colour/heart rate/reflex & irritability/muscle tone/respirations’) this baby had an apgar of 4. she had no cry, was terribly limp and slightly blue/gray. her heartbeat was stable and strong but for some reason her lungs would not allow her to have proper resps. while i finished up the mom some of my teammates did resus on her. we left her with a more stable resps rate but she was still on oxygen and hadn’t cried yet. the mom was amazing though. she spoke english and our first encounter of that morning was her asking me to take her to theatre (operation room) and get the baby out she said, ‘please madam i can not do it anymore, just get it out. take me to theatre’ i explained that it would be very soon and she could not go to theatre because there was a line up for theatre and by the time she got in the baby would be out, plus also they can not take someone to theatre whose baby is already fully engaged. then she says ‘ please madam just cut me, just get it out i can not do it anymore’ i explained that i could not just cut her and put my hand up her and pull it out and that the time it was taking is allowing her time to stretch so she won’t have to tear or be cut. she was not impressed but we prayed together and she seemed to trust me. well it was only twenty minutes later that her baby girl was born! it was sad leaving her not knowing how the baby would handle the rest of the day or night but the next morning i went to postnatal and she was there holding her girl! she see’s me and smiles and says ‘she cried last night!’ such a happy mommy! it is my blessing and privilege to help these women.

thursday and friday i delivered two more healthy girls. four girls in a row! thursday was so busy my staff only made it there for a moment to see me get the head out and slip the cord over the baby’s shoulder and guide the rest of her out. i’m becoming more and more confident in deliveries and enjoying being able to handle situations on my own. a hospital intern stayed with me for the rest of the delivery and helped out in the third stage of labour as it got a little complicated, but ended up good. while i was finished the delivery, a women was brought in from ANC and we were told she had a pre-mature baby and it was coming. it was delivered by one of us and was the tinniest thing i’ve ever seen. it was terrible sad to see this little life cut short. and even sadder to see the mom is utter agony over her lost child. friday was even busier. there were four students and two staff and everyone did a delivery and one student did two. there were also many born by the hospital staff as well! every where you looked babies were coming into the world! i got to learn something new as well. my lady tore pretty bad and so my staff taught me how to suture. she did the first 3 and i finished the last 5. the women was so chill about everything, which is good cuz we gave her a lot of freezing, but even with freezing you’d still feel the initial piercing of the needle and she would wince, but the best part was when her cell rang and she answered it! can you imagine ‘hello, yes i’m just being sewed up right now...’ we had that earlier this week as well, with a women wanting her ringing phone while pushing!!!! craziness.

a busy week, but a good one as well. saturday was a great day of hanging out by a pool. theres this hotel a bit out of town that you can pay to hang out by the pool and so thats what three of us did. it was lovely. took an hour and a half to get home but it was worth it! next week i’m in ANC!

till next time.....