Saturdays

Sometimes Saturdays end up being the craziest days. Saturdays are supposed to be at least a little bit more restful than the week. But, we live at a hospital. Which makes every day hold the potential for a lot of craziness. My day started at 5am, when I got called into Maternity for two moms who had come to the hospital in labor. 

Actually my day really started at 2am, when Paige and Arwen and I went to check on a premie baby boy who was born yesterday. We ended up being there for about two hours, then went home, and I managed to sleep for about thirty minutes before being called in.

I stayed in Maternity taking care of two ladies and checking the baby heart beat for both of them throughout the morning. One lady was on her third pregnancy, and the other girl was only sixteen and pregnant with her first baby. She hadn’t come prepared with anything they normally bring - like cloth diapers and such, and she was much more anxious about her labor than the other mom.

I encouraged them and helped them walk around the hospital compound and fanned them as needed and tried my best to keep the younger girl from just laying down. 

Finally around 8am the first mom delivered a beautiful baby girl. Everything went great. It was pretty much a stress-free delivery - at least for me. Once we got the mom settled and everything cleaned up, I decided I’d go back to the house for a bit, eat something, maybe get some coffee and get my laundry done.

Esther and I have a weekly routine of sitting outside at the back of the house where the clotheslines and the faucet is, and washing our laundry while listening to music. We did that this morning, then I grabbed some food and started to go over to the other house to get on the internet. On my way over someone told me they needed me in the Emergency room. I went over there just in time to see a two month old baby girl die. People were already screaming and crying and throwing themselves on the ground by the time I went inside. I don’t even know what happened to this girl, only that she came in early in the morning in respiratory distress. I wrapped her up in a blanket and gave her to a family member, and that was just about all I could do.

I started to go back to the house, but then Dr. Loes wanted me to check on a mom who has really bad infections in her breasts. She also has a two week old baby who she can’t feed - which means the baby is going to die. So back I went to check on this mom. I got Marie Rose to help her get cleaned up and moved into the post-op wards, and then Esther and I made a quick run on bikes to the market to buy formula and a bottle. The baby was already dehydrated and had lost weight. The market was absolutely insane. It’s normally a bit of a struggle but today was ridiculous. People and motorcycles and horrendous noise everywhere. We managed to get the formula and bottles and some baby diapers, as well as some rags for cleaning and a cold coke. We went back as quickly as we could, and I taught the family how to mix up the formula, and then I fed the baby. He was screaming until he got the bottle in his mouth and then he calmed down and drank the milk as fast as he could. 

After that was done, I went back to Maternity to check on the young girl who was still in labor. I ended up just staying there because she was close to being ready to push. This delivery was stressful, and because it was her first baby she had a hard time pushing him out. The heart rate dropped and we were doing our best to coach her to push, but she was pretty exhausted. Finally she mustered the strength to push him out - and God answered all our prayers. Even after being compromised for a while, he came out with good color and crying. We were so relieved. The mom needed suturing after the delivery, and we were out of sutures so I had to go find Hannah for the keys, which ended up being with Marie Rose, so finally we go the sutures we needed and Charnelle did that while we attended to the baby and cleaned up. Once everything was cleaned and I’d given the mom something to drink, it was time to go back to the 2-week old baby in the post-op ward and feed him again. This time the dad was there and I showed him what to do and then let him try. It was really sweet watching him. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a dad bottle feed a baby here. This is the only photo I have to show for the day:

Anyway, that was an insanely long post, but only those interested will read it. :) Thanks for all your prayers. Keep it up!