Everyday's a beautiful day for a birth

This is how I am awaken sometimes in the middle of the night: by a text from the birth phone at the birthing clinic stating:

"Gud am, we have labor now, g2p1, 6cm, 80effaced,+1, membrane intact, vital's normal" Text sent at 3:29am. Could there be a better reason to get up at 3am than to help participate in the miracle of a birth?! I'm pretty thrilled to be so fortunate to receive such texts and participate in these life giving events.

I've finally, officially caught my first baby! He was born September 23rd at 11:13pm and he is beautiful! Of course, Sherina, our head midwife helped me catch him, but it still felt wonderful to actually have this hands-on experience.


Meet King Adrian! Yes, that's his real name!! Isn't he beautiful?

Here I am doing the baby check on him. After every birth, the baby is immediately placed on the mother's belly until the cord is clamped (the cord is clamped after it stops pulsating, usually about 5-10 minutes after birth). Once the cord is clamped, the baby is placed at the mother's breast to breastfeed. It is only after the baby has breastfed and bonded with the mom for about 1 hour that we do our routine baby check.

After the baby check, which includes obtaining the baby's length, weight, head circumference, etc, we dress the baby in clothes provided by the family. Every baby here wears mittens and booties and gets wrapped like a little burrito! Here is me and the little cutie pre-wrap!




Here I am with 2 of the midwives that assisted in this delivery. Rose is on the left and Grace on the right. The clinic has 5 Filipino midwifes and 2 western midwives.






And here's the little bundle, all wrapped up, snuggling next to mom, and ready to sleep after such a hard day's work : )

Here I am at the first post-partum visit doing our mom and baby check-ups! Both him and his mom are going really well!

And the pictures continue...I eat fist usually once a day!



And here are some pictures of the children in the orphanage.

This little girl came to the orphanage severely malnourished about 1 month ago. She was very depressed and with a very flat affect. It's only within the last week that she started to smile and cry. The Ruel Foundation really does a nice job of
making the kids healthy.












I haven't had a chance to take too many photos of me helping at the birthing clinic. For obvious reasons, the birthing process is of a sensitive nature and I've also been pretty busy helping out. But, here are some pictures from some postpartum visits that I've been on. The midwives visit each baby on day 1 and day 3 after a birth at the baby's house. I really love going on these as I get to see where and how people live here.

I get to meet the families of the birthing mother and they often offer us snacks, called meryenda. This baby in the picture on the left is the first birth I helped/assisted in here. I held the mothers legs during labor!

Hi there from Calapan. Thought I'd post some pics from my first 2 weeks here. This first one is a picture of the rooster that wakes me up VERY early. Who knew roosters started roosting at 2:30 am! Almost everyone around here owns roosters that they keep tied/chained up. At first I was like, why would someone want a "pet" rooster? I've come to find out that cock fighting is big around here and that people raise roosters for that purpose.


I love going to the grocery store in foreign countries. Calapan has 1 grocery store called Citimart and it is super crowded with narrow aisles. Everything comes in small, individually packaged quantities. I found it amusing that the alcohol is out on display and very cheap...I think in this picture the Gilbey's Gin is 125 pesos. $1 = about 48 pesos, so this "expensive" Gin is less than $3!



But, the chocolate, like the Hershey's bars shown here are locked up behind glass and cost 244 pesos right across from all of the alcohol! I couldn't stop laughing!


Here is a picture of a jeepney. Most people either travel by jeepney or tricycle, aka "tricee." Jeepneys are more expensive and usually for
longer journeys.

And here's a pic of a tricee.



The Ruel Foundation has a cook that cooks for me and some of the other staff and volunteers here. His food presentation is always AMAZING! And, the food is pretty tasty too!

Official Leg Holder

I'm very excited to announce that I have officially assisted in my first birth here, well, really ever (in nursing school I only observed)! As of 3 days ago, I let the midwives know to text me whenever a labor arrives. There is always a midwife at the clinic (their shifts are 6am-2pm, 2pm-10pm, and 10pm-6am) and prior to 3 days ago, I hadn't been notified of any births as I was taking some time to acclimate to a new schedule and environment.

So, you may be wondering, what did I do? Well, I was the official leg holder! Many of the women here, especially first pregnancies, called "primi's" deliver lying on their side. This position is the best to help prevent any vaginal tearing, which is common in the hospitals here (this is due to a variety of reasons that I will most likely talk about in a later blog). During a contraction I was able to place 1 knee on top of her bottom leg and use both of my arms to hold open her top leg to allow the pelvis to open for the passage of the baby and also to allow for better visualization. Man, was this tiny little Filipino woman strong! I definitely got a work out that day, which is good, as I'm not doing much of anything else. It is way too hot and humid to go running.

I thought I'd talk a bit about why I am interested in midwifery and why the Philippines. As a registered nurse in the United States, I've seen a lot of what goes on medically according to western beliefs and practices and how they have evolved to their current state. Simultaneously, I've also become (although I've always kind of had tendencies to be) more holistic in my approach to life and health in general. After working as a RN for 2 years, I've come to realize that there is a strong disconnect between what is practiced in the hospital and the evolution of my holistic health care beliefs. So, I started to think about what line of work I could go into, in the medical field, that could work for me. Midwifery is just that! Midwifery allows for pregnant women to take control of their own bodies during one of the most natural processes while providing reassuring guidance and assistance.

I heard about Mercy in Action from a friend of a friend 2 years ago and have wanted to come here ever since, but the timing just wasn't right. I could never do anything like this in the States without some sort of certification of midwifery student status and felt comfortable participating in a program that someone I could talk to had done. I really appreciate that this organization in Christian and very grass roots. I feel blessed to be here, learning a ton, but also helping to meet a need.

There is so much more to say….good thing I'll be here for 2 months to fill you all in!

I've forgotten my cord to upload photos, so I will have to do that later, but I will soon.

Funny quote from when I arrived and talking to the head midwife Theresa:

Me: "So, I now you told me that this is the busy season for the birthing clinic. Why exactly is that?"

Theresa: "Well, it was Christmas 9 months ago and it is was cooler weather."

I had never thought about it like that.

I've arrived

I've arrived in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines! It feels good to finally be here and start adjusting to a new time zone, a new pace of life, and just a new overall way of thinking about life. My flights were mostly seamless. Theresa, from Mercy In Action/Ruel Foundation (the organization I will be working with www.mercyinaction.com/www.ruelfoundation.com) met me in Manila and then navigated us back to a friend's house to spend the night. We journeyed another 4 hours to get to Calapan on Wednesday. I've been in Calapan just about 24 hours as I write this and am trying to take everything in.

It turns out that Mercy in Action and the Ruel Foundation have joined forces and as of recently, are considered one organization. The Ruel Foundation has been here for several years operating an orphanage, but this past January, the Ruel Foundation teamed up with Mercy in Action to open a birthing center. Good things are happening here. Yesterday I spent about 45 minutes with the children in the orphanage and am in love with every single one of them. There are 13 children 6 years old and younger. They are so desperate for love and affection.

Today I spent my morning at the birthing center observing pre-natal checkups and currently I am sitting in the waiting room of the birthing center waiting for any laboring women to walk through the door! I'm very much looking forward to experiencing my first birth here. There is so much more to tell you all about, but I am getting sleepy and my computer is running out of juice, so I will leave you with a few pictures.



Here is the house I'm staying at! I'm one of the first interns to stay here.









And here's the kitchen. Thankfully, I'll just be needing the refrigerator as my meals are provided by The Ruel Foundation.








You'll notice the bunk beds with the mosquito netting. I'm on the bottom bunk. Surprisingly, the bed is pretty comfortable.

Here is the orphanage. It is caddy-corner from the house I'm staying in.











And finally, here's me and Theresa in front of the birthing clinic. The birthing clinic is located next to the orphanage (it's on the other side of the orphanage in the above picture). Theresa and her family are leaving for 3 months to go back to Canada (her and her husband's home base). Although I've only known her for a few days, I'm sad she, her husband and 3 daughters are leaving. They have been so kind and welcoming. Theresa is the head midwife at this clinic. For updates on her and her family's ministry, visit theehelers.blogspot.com. Their blog could also bring you up to speed on the happenings here in Calapan.

Well, that's it folks. More to come soon!

Quote on poster in birthing clinic waiting room: "Poverty isn't the opposite of abundance; it's the opposite of adequacy." ~unknown author