week thirty two - labour ward

another full week, as it usually is, especially when i’m in the labour ward. monday was all day lectures including learning suturing, practicing on fabric and next week on meat.... yes should be interesting! i already have been able to suture before so its good to continue to practice and learn more of a technique. tuesday we headed out to the hospital.

tuesday was a busy day, its funny how as i sit to write this on sunday, trying to recall the week the days just seem to mesh together. i remember i did a delivery on tuesday, little girl! the mom was so excited! thats my favorite after the baby’s out and you place them on their mamma’s tummy and you look at her face and she’s all smiles so excited! thanking you and thanking God for her baby! it was so busy that day that my partner wasn’t able to help me right away so the baby just chilled on its mom throughout the rest of the delivery till someone could come and take the baby for her vitals and to be weighed. i think its neat when everything goes well and the baby and mom can just be together for a bit. she needed only a few sutures and i got to do them! went relatively well. some difficulty getting started because at first we didn’t have any of the drug that freezes the women. and many women needed suturing that day. terrible thought to suture without freezing first. the women are in so much pain, all cuz the hospital has ran out of supplies. i don’t know how but we were able to obtain some so she was able to be frozen, thank you God!

wednesday i stayed and monitored a women for the entire day. she had been in labour for quite some while and i was getting concerned cuz her contractions weren’t progressing very well. by the end of the day she still wasn’t getting any further so after discussing things with the doctor we put an IV in her to give her body more energy, they were gonna continue monitoring her after we left, all i could do was pray that she would be able to deliver her baby and it would be okay. (the baby’s heart rate had dropped since earlier that morning) i went back the next day and checked the paperwork and she had delivered a healthy baby boy!

thursday, was a good day. i was able to monitor a women early on then do the delivery mid morning! another little girl. its neat cuz i felt that morning a name for a little girl, (whenever a baby is born we pray over them and ask God if he has a specific name for them) and on the way to the hospital i felt there’d be a little girl and her name was to be Angelina Faith. so as soon as i saw she was a girl, i thanked God that i could give her this name. (the name is for us to be praying for them, its not necessarily the name the parents give. sometimes they ask us but most of the time the baby isn’t named for a few weeks after birth) it was a really good and quick delivery. spent the rest of that day taking vitals of mom and baby and doing paperwork!

friday was another really busy day. right off the hop i went to monitor a women and she was asking me to push. i had been told she was only 8cm dilated and usually you don’t encourage pushing quite yet cuz she can tear, but this women was 40 years old and it was her sixth child. you’d think she’d know her body and when to push, also because she’d had so many babies her body will dilate a lot faster. i was told just to check and make sure it was okay to push but when i went to check she was done with asking to push and just started pushing. so as i’m trying to feel for any reason not to push (trying not to use words that some may not want to hear!) that baby was moving down quickly. within one push she had gotten its head and shoulders out. baby didn’t even turn as they usually do so the shoulders can come out in the right way, and before i knew it one big baby boy was born! she was very happy and enjoyed holding him on her tummy. everything went really good. the rest of the day was chaos, helping others in their births. a breech baby born, and just babies coming all over the place! lots of paperwork and vitals to take, beds overflowing and women needing to be transferred. one of those days that when you leave you feel like you still need to be moving and doing things.... a good day though, i prefer them busy over slow. makes things exciting!

saturday was a chill day. watched a lot of movies and hung out with people. power was out for some time in the evening and is out right now as i right this. this morning (sunday) we went to church as a team. the same church we went to last week although this time EVERYBODY came! it was a good service and during it started pouring rain. so nice after it being over a month where it hasn’t rained at all. it poured and filled the streets as we drove home it was slow going but we made it fine. i’m thinking about taking a nap before dinner and before another full week! thanks for your prayers!

till next time...