Our smallest patient in the hospital right now is a
little premie baby girl. She was born Monday morning around 8:00. A relative
brought her in and the teenage parents arrived a little later. I had been
working in Maternity the past week so I was there to receive them. It was a
hectic day. The challenge of figuring out what was going on, finding out
information about the baby and the family, trying to understand the dad telling
me the birth story and translating as best as I could for the girls was hard
enough, not to mention assisting the other moms in the delivery room and
arguing with family members who were trying to give one of the pregnant ladies
some strange seeds to eat.
The lady got mad when I took the seeds away, but
when I told the nurse she got madder at the lady, and gave her a good scolding.
So I was going back and forth between the ward two Maternity buildings and
trying to keep everything straight and do what needed to be done. I sat with
the dad (who was eighteen or nineteen) on the bench outside for a little while
to find out more about what had happened and provide some moral support. It had
been a frightening and chaotic morning for all of them and they were obviously
quite shaken.
The real challenge which tried my patience immensely
was the time I spent with the family. New mothers here have a bad habit of not
feeding their babies until 10-24 hours after they’re born. They also don’t
drink enough water and are sometimes a bit dehydrated which is a big part of
the problem. I spent a lot of time with the 18-year-old mom making her drink
water, trying to help her express milk and explaining that the baby could not
live on the glucose alone, which the nurses were giving every few hours.
It didn’t help matters that the mom was sick, her
eyes yellowish from jaundice and understandably miserable, not to mention that
her husband had left and was nowhere to be found after the hectic morning.
After being completely unsuccessful with expressing milk, I gave the grandma
some money and sent her to the market to buy formula. Time was precious so I
was hoping she would hurry back. (I’d had to call Laura to find out what kind
to buy and how much to give.) Eventually she came back, and informed me that I
hadn’t given her enough money, but while I’d been out she’d come back, gotten
more and bought the formula. I was relieved to hear this, and immediately mixed
up formula for the baby, and then started feeding her. By this time it was late
afternoon and I was afraid it was too late for the baby, but I was going to try
my best anyway. I explained to the grandma how to do it, and had her watch me,
and then let her try for herself.
I have never seen a baby this small, let alone been
in charge of caring for one, so it was pretty stressful. I was frustrated at
the family for not being attentive, not using common sense, having weird ideas
about how things should be and not really seeming to care. Trying to help
people learn the right way is an uphill battle every step. By the end of the
day I could hardly think straight, but at least I’d helped to keep the baby
alive, hopefully clarified some things with the family and had realized my bad
attitude. No matter how big the challenge or how daunting the problem is that
comes my way, it’s not going to do any good if I forget what I’m here for. If
I’m going to be here and help these people, and come back to help them, I can’t
get frustrated every time I run into something like this. I have to turn to
Jesus and look to Him to solve the problems. It takes an amazing amount of
self-control and patience to get through a day like that, and only God can help
me.
