Orphan Babies, Clinic Babies....

Santino and Lyka are brother and sister. I'd adopt them both if I could!!!!!
Jasper and Santino.
Young mother with her first baby.
More babies with cute hats

Moms and Babies

Baby hat knitted by my mom's friend Christine! Thank you so much!!
This big baby girl weighed over 10lbs and was a shoulder dystocia!! Stuck for about 5 mins!!!
Posterior baby! Born face up!
Young mom and her baby.

International Beauty Contest

I was asked to judge an International Beauty Contest. The contestants were quite extravagant, hard to judge!
The other judges were quite serious!! he he he
Jenn and Karina came to see me there after!
Some of the judges, artists, and contestants of the contest.
A poor 10 year old boy in the hospital. Jenn is sponsoring his leg surgery. (Notice how 'clean' the hospital is!!)

2010

A Pastor's wife delivered on New Year's Eve. She had high blood pressure and the constant fire works going off didn't help to lower it! First baby of 2010 for us!
My recent trip to Manila to get our new students. We took a big ferry boat cuz it was the only boat going to Calapan that day! Jenn my ever safety conscious roomie, made us all wear life jackets!! This caused a lot of attention cuz no one else ever wears them! They were quite dusty when we put them on! It took 20 mins to figure out how to do them up! The crew was all watching and laughing. As there were 4 of us 'white' ladies, we were asked to visit the captains area and be in lots of pictures!!
Me, Alexis, Christie and Jenn enjoying some sun on the boat deck (while being photographed many times!! he he he
Finally being able to see my 'kids' from Manila!! Christian, Shaira, and Revy!!

This is Micha!! She is the 1 1/2 year old daughter of my friend Crisel. Crisel, Micha and her new baby, Joy, are living in my house. Crisel is a young widow. Her husband passed away in June 2009. I've known Crisel for almost a year now! She's like a sister to me! Just before baby Joy was born Crisel had come to talk to me about leaving her children at the Ruel orphanage as she had no where to live anymore and no job and no money!!! She was in tears and beside herself!! I couldn't even imagine being forced to give up my own children because there was no way to feed them and no one to help me!! I told her to come stay with me, have her baby and we would figure out what her options are. I love having them here! They are like family to me! But it is an added responsibility as I'm now providing for a family of 3!!! Still praying about their future!

This is Santino!! I love him to bits!! I'd adopt him if I could! He's one of the babies at the Ruel orphanage. He's now 6 months old!!! So sad that I don't get to see him as much as I'd like!
This is Crisel's baby Joy!! She's a darling!! How could we ever give her up!!!
This is a mom, Eleanor and her son Rodenson who delivered with us in Nov 2009. Eleanor lost her previous 2 babies at 1 month and 2 months of age to jaundice. Rodenson had an unusually high bilirubin count so we've been monitoring him for months and he's been in and out of hospital!! They have no money, so we've been paying all medical bills!! Just last week his bilirubin count went down to a normal level!!! Thank you Jesus!!! :)
I don't know how to rotate the pic sorry!!! he he But I was SOOOO excited to receive a box of medical supplies from Doctor Janice as well as a few treats from my sis and family!!! The boxes are only about $100 to send and are quite large! My address is:

Sherina Tatum

c/o Ruel Foundation

Brgy Masipit

Calapan city

Oriental Mindoro

5200 Philippines

(he he he if anyone's interested!!!)

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>