Visiting a young mom and her baby at their home. The baby was super cute except for all the poo exploding from his diaper!!
The baby was only 2500 grams. So tiny. The mom, had 2 other boys and also 2 miscarriages, and she's only 21!!!!

This is Rose our newest Midwife. She's holding baby Otto! He's the baby who was stuck! His head was out for 8 minutes before we could get the body out!! This rarely happens but was our second shoulder dystocia this month!! I named Otto after my Grandpa who passed away the day Otto was born!
This is Nicole, one of the babies at the orphanage. She's just over a year! I love to go and cuddle with her any chance I get!!

This was the birth with shoulder dystocia where the babies head was out but not the body for over 11 mins!! Thank you Jesus this baby made it alive!

This mom is so very sweet and was so appreciative of me visiting her and praying with her.

Jason, Theresa, and I took the midwives out for dinner. Jen's beside me, then Tabea, Grace, Myrna and Jen's husband, Joks.
This is the cleft lip and palate baby. They are still deciding on a name for him!
This is him also!! He's so cute!!

This and That

Weighing a baby.
Doing the new born exam.
Baby Louie was born Oct 24, 2008. He was born with a bilateral cleft lip. He was operated on Oct 2009 at Provincial Hospital.
Our midwife Myrna doing a home visit.
Checking the baby's skin color and cord. Skin looks a bit yellow. Thankfully there's lots of sunshine here for the babies to do natural phototherapy.

Calapan

Birth Clinic here in Calapan

Me and Jen, one of the Filipino midwives. She's also due in Sept.

My kitchen, except the cupboards are chocolate brown now thanks to Jen's husband!

Wow my place is a mess!

My house is the one with the red roof.

Wow its been a long time since I've updated this blog! So...... where to start...... I'm living in a new place now, Calapan, it's still on the island of Oriental Mindoro. It's about 2 hours from Puerto Galera, where I was before. Mercy In Action has started a new birth clinic here in partnership with an organization called Ruel Foundation. Ruel Foundation rescues abandoned children and malnourished children. There are currently 10 children living at the Ruel House. These kids need love so bad so whenever I have time I go and hold them. Ruel also coordinates operations for children with deformities. Baby Louie, with the bilateral cleft lip, is waiting for surgery when the next team of people come here, hopefully this October. If you wanna know more about Ruel, check out there site at:

www.ruelfoundation.com

So the clinic here is Calapan just officially opened a few weeks ago and we are starting to get really busy. In this area, 70% of the women deliver their babies at home because they cannot afford medical care. The doctors we've met here have all been very supportive of our clinic. One even said he would send us any poor women that he knows of! The Philippines has one of the worst maternal death rates and the government is getting flack for not doing more about it. One woman dies here every 2 hours!!!! It is so important to have good relationships with the other government health workers. One of the doctors stopped by Theresa's house last week and we had such a good chat with him. We were even able to talk to him about some of the new evidence based practices that we do and he was very amazed!

Theresa and Jason are running the clinic here in Calapan. They are an amazing Canadian family. Theresa is in the same program as I am for midwifery. We're trying to help each other study, but so far we've been so busy with the clinic that we haven't had much time! We have a birth on average, about every other day now. But I did hand in my first official assignment last night!! Most of my time has been spent training the Filipino midwives here and the 2 new students. When you teach, you just learn so much more! So its been good, I'm learning lots! Its just not the same as where I'm at in my studies!

I have my own little apartment here in Calapan. I got my friend's husband to paint it for me. It was kinda ugly and stinky when I first moved in, but its getting better now. I have 2 bedrooms, so if anyone wants to come here for a visit!!! Hint hint hint!! LOL

But actually, I might be back for a bit soon. My grandpa has been diagnosed with cancer and I really want to see him before he dies! There's a few things that I am trying to work around. Jen, one of the midwives here is having a baby the beginning of September. Also Jason and Theresa will be going back to Canada for a few months at the end of September and it would be helpful if I was here to help with the clinic while they are gone. Its hard to be so far away from family and those you love, especially when you don't know how much time you might have left with them!

So, hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of where I'm at right now. Thanks for the continued support and encouragements! Lots of Love!! <3>

Another happy mom!

Baby Louie. He still needs to gain another 1 kilo by the end of this month so he can qualify for surgery!!

Tammy, Ran Mae, her mom Mary, brothers Paul and Justin and me. She had a very hard time breastfeeding so we went to her house for an hour almost every day for 10 days!!

Busiest Month Ever!!!

I have been so busy this month but yet I have been so aware that many of you have been praying for me and my patients! Thank you so much!! Your prayers mean so much!! There are so many stories I could tell you about events that happened this month that I hardly know where to begin! I have learned so many valuables skills and there have been many intense moments! I would greatly appreciate your continued prayer for me, my health and the safety of my patients, especially the little babies! My back went out 6 days ago and I have been in and out of excruiating pain!! I finally broke down and took the reccomended pain medication available here at the clinic. My bed is not ideal for my back pain but I'm doing the best I can. Trying to sleep flat on my back with my legs bent. But I'm praying God heals me cuz its very difficult to properly care for patients with my back like this. The transportation also doesn't help on the small tricicles!!
I'm very excited that my parents will be coming to visit me April 21!!! I'm excited for them to get to see what I do here and visit some of my patients:) My parents are putting together some donations to bring me so if any of you feel so inclined to donate supplies or money, that would be awesome!! :)
May I will be starting my official academics for Midwifery!! I'm excited to keep learning. There is still so much I want to know!
I will try to upload some pictures but this connection isn't great so it might not work.

Another baby safely brought into this world! Thank you Jesus!
This mom delivered so fast. She had felt like pushing in the tricy on the way to the clinic. Baby was out before I had time to put my second glove on all the way!! I got to name him too!! I named him Josiah!! He was so small but so very cute!!!
This was my first official catch from last Nov 14th!! So nice to see them again but they both have really bad coughs right now:(
I really like going to see the families for the postpartum visits to their home. Such a priveledge to see how they live. So poor!
Doing the new born exam.

Things have been busy here at the clinic! The first week we were having lots of births and the next week we had to do a lot of transports to the hospital! I've been learning lots through every experience. I've now delivered 8 babies as the primary midwife. One was just last night. But this week has been hard too. An older man came in the clinic who had been bitten by a poisonous snake. I was helping the doctor and we did all we could but the man passed away:( I was doing chest compressions and we were giving him blows of oxygen but we did not have the anti venom for the snake bite:( So sad!! I want to get some!! This did not help the fear I already have for snkakes!! Some of the women we live far up the mountains and we have to hike up there are visit them!! I'm going to need extra prayer for peace and no fear! There is one woman who lives in the area the man got bite and we might have to hike to her house in the dark if she goes into labor in the middle of the night!!! Ah!!! But overall I'm really liking being back here. Terri, Vicki's sister is teaching a 6 week course on childbirth education on our prenatal days and that is going great! The women, and me and the Filipino midwives, are learning so much and its fun too:) We are having more and more come every week!
I am just about done with my application for school. I'm applying to the National College of Midwifery so that I can become an official midwife! All that's left is to send in a cheque for the tution. This will be an online program. Most of the textbooks are here from schools that Vicki has run so I'm so priveledged to be able to make use of them!! I'm really excited to start studying:) Lots of Love to all of you!!! <3 <3 <3

Feels like home :)

It's home here now!! I'm loving it!! This week there were 4 births! Some were a bit complicated but when I whispered the name of Jesus, I could feel His calming presence and all the babies and moms are alive and doing good!! I'm learning a lot! Not just about midwifery, but also about ushering God's presence into my daily life! There could be the most complicated situation, but when you feel God right there with you, He takes away your fear and fills you with His love and peace! It's amazing!! I know this is the place and the time that God has called me to! Thank you to all for your continued support, prayers and encouragements!! There is a definite battle and I need your help to keep fighting! Fighting for my quiet time, fighting for the women, fighting for the things that are on God's heart!! I love you all!! Happy Valentines Day!! I hope God's love is so real to you this week!!! <3 <3 <3

My first week back in Puerto Galera

My very first day back to the island I went straight to the clinic to help with all the prenatals and that night there was a birth and I delivered the baby. A beautiful baby girl named Jenelyn. I went to the home a few days later to check on the mom, Arlyn and baby and both were doing well. I was able to give Arlyn some help with breastfeeding and I can’t wait to visit her again to see how she’s doing with that! Breastfeeding is the absolute best thing you could ever do for your baby!!!
Thursday is the day we go to Sabang and do prenatals for the women living in that area. It happened that I had to go alone there and do all the prenatals!! I found out when I was finished that there had been 15!! Which was a lot for me and it was my first time doing prenatals by myself. I was a bit nervous and had to use my broken Tagalog a lot!! But I was amazed that I could understand most of what they told me!
Thursday night we had to transport a mom in labor to the hospital in Calapan, which is 2 hours away. We had been monitoring the FHT for a few hours but they were decreasing and bright green poo particles coming out in the fluid were telling us that the baby was in distress. The parents were very concerned for their baby but also extremely worried about how they would pay for the transportation and hospital fees!! The look on their faces broke my heart and I gave them some of the last of my pesos!! They were so grateful!! The mom, Anna, had tears in her eyes! I heard this morning that she was able to have a natural deliver and so far the baby is doing fine. When they are back from Calapan, I will go visit them and do a check up. I’m praying that God will provide the money for the fees that they will have to pay to the hospital. The burden of that often weighs on families for years as they struggle to somehow pay down the debt. Last year there was an article in the Manila newspaper about 4 babies who were held at the hospital until they were 8 months old because their families had no money to pay for delivery!!!! Things like this just should not happen!!!!

This morning I got to see baby Louie. He was born last November and has a bilateral cleft lip. He was only 2000grams, about 4.4lbs when he was born. His deformity makes it hard for him to nurse properly. We have a surgery lined up for him thru Operation Smile, but he needs to gain a certain amount of weight. This morning his weight was up to 4100grams. But he still has a ways to go!! It was so fun to hold him and see him laughing and smiling at me. I could tell that he has some other developmental delays as he’s 3 months but still cannot hold his head up on his own.
This afternoon I went to 2 pregnant girls homes to check on them. It was so fun to visit with them and their families. I had been having a lonely, rainy, sad day afternoon and it was good to get out and hang out with a fun family. One of the girls lived half way up the mountain. It was quite the hike in sandals in the rain up the slippery, muddy terrain!! On the way back down I was so sure that I would end up sliding down the mountain on my bum!!
It’s so good to be back here and I know this is where I am to be for this time, but I have been struggling with loneliness and today I spent a few hours crying. I would love pray for God’s joy and just for friendship, someone I can talk to and share how I’m really feeling and pray with! I’m missing all my friends and family back home and all the love and support you all are to me!!
Lots of Love to you all!!!