Shiphrah!

Hi Everyone!

I am in Manila and am currently sitting in the kitchen/waiting room at Shiphrah, enjoying the fans, breeze through the open windows, and conversation with Jeri and one of the other interns. I got here yesterday afternoon and got "settled" in the apartment and met the other interns. This morning, there were prenatals and my "official' job was to take blood pressure. I took the blood pressure of about 30 women. By the end of it, my ears hurt from the stethoscope...But it was fun. :-D

Then I got the chance to help with the actual prenatal. I helped one of the midwives measure the fundal height (how many centimeters it is from the woman's pubic bone to the top of her uterus), feel for the baby's position (if she's far enough along), and listen to the heart beat. The dopplers out here are pretty old and I found them difficult at times to hear the heart tones.

During prenatals, the other two interns were at a birth. I'm next up. Hopefully a mom will come in soon...The last intern to arrive had to wait a week before a woman had a baby. That means that Shiphrah will probably have a lot of women all at once. That would be nice. :-D

I admit, I feel a little overwhelmed here since I have to provide for everything with regard to myself. For instance, I have to purchase my own water (since we can't drink the tap), toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc. I'm also responsible to make sure my laundry's done. I've never been responsible for that before. For someone still feeling slightly jetlagged, it's been incredibly overwhelming. Supposedly, there's a shopping trip planned for this afternoon to show me where everything is and how to get it. We'll see...

I think it would be fun to close this post with the story of an interesting birth I attended at Mercy Maternity Center:

The mom walked into the waiting room, leaned against a metal locker, and gave a deep, guttural grunted. The student midwife asked, "Can you walk to the delivery room?"

In response, she grunted again.

The waiting room quickly turned into a flurry of activity as they prepared for a baby to be born in the waiting room. Then the midwife preceptor appeared. She did not want the baby born in the waiting room. So she had the midwives half-carry the mom to a bed where the woman laid down on her side and screamed with the next push. By this time, the laboring woman's mom had come in and she was standing right next to her.In the Philippines, it's very embarrassing to everyone if there's any sort of commotion, so this older woman leaned over and closed her daughter's lips to silence her. I'd never seen anything like it.

Anyway, within two minutes, the baby was out. He was pretty limp and white so he got oxygen. However, he pinked up within a few minutes.

When he was weighed, he turned out to be 4lb 6oz. He was so small and so cute! I was privileged to have been at that birth. :-D

Introducing little Jay-Mike!