2 births in one night

saturday night was my first night back in the clinic after a bit of a hiatus to rest and recover. i am healthy, again thanks in large part to some fabulous chinese herbs! my tests came back negative for amoebic dysentery, too! e had a bit of a fever and some diarrhea but once again, chinese herbs to the rescue! we only had to get about 1/4 of the pill inside her mouth. on mondays, a local pediatrician does free pre-natal visits for anyone in the area who needs one. she is a homeopathic doc, an acupuncturist and trained in traditional healing from her native madagascar. she gave ez some moxabustion while i nursed her then taught a how to do so e would cry less. she encouraged us to keep giving the herbs for just another day. she also told us to give colloidal silver, which taste like water so e drank it up easily when we got some from the midwives house. quite a wonderful ped visit. it's only e's fourth one in her short life and the last one she had back in nc was total crap as we didn't see either of the docs we like but some new person. she offered to hold e down by her arms so she could look in her ears. are you friggin kidding me? we do like the other doc who heads up the practice, if anyone needs a recommendation out the western wake way. our other doc we liked has retired. e is all better now, too!
now that she's healthy, she's planning a trip to the bird sanctuary.
saturday nights from 5-7pm we host drop-in pre-natal visits. women are asked to come back in a week, two weeks, three weeks or a month depending on how far along they are in their pregnancies and if anything abnormal is going on, such as baby's position is breech at 37 weeks. we'll do some thing there to encourage the wee one to turn, empower the mom with techniques she can do at home and offer a chiro visit if he is in the clinic at that time. the women can chose to come back on a tues, thurs or sat night. since most walk or ride motorbikes, few of them come when it rains. since it rained a bunch last week during the week, saturday was a busy night. we have these new little number cards so we see people according to their number now. since i have been here, i have worked on learning how to take people's blood pressure. i observe a bunch of other skills at the prenatal visits but this one has been my initial focus. it frees the midwives and nurses up to do the more skilled things like palpate and measure the fundus. they are more hands on and speak indonesian so it makes more sense to me that they would do those things. i do observe though and get to palpate with their guidance. we were so busy on saturday that my ears were throbbing from wearing a stethoscope for 2 hours straight. i checked about 30 women in that brief time period.
yayasan bumhi sehat aka the birth center where i volunteer. this was on indonesian's independence day with the national flag flying.

after that, i got to attend a birth where i did charting, observing and general assisting. (there were a total of four women in labor and another woman had given birth right before pre-natals started.) this woman had either a friend or sister sitting behind her and her hubby by her side. the dad looked a bit worried so i gave him a few drops of rescue remedy every once in a while. first time that i've given it to the dad and not the mom! she was delivering her second child and the very wonderful part is that she was having a vaginal birth after a cesarean birth (vbac)! my first to witness! the baby's head was crowning with the bag of water intact (aka in the caul). it was so fabulous! the baby came gently and slid easily out. the whole room of midwives, nurses and her supporters was so happy that we cheered. the dad was praying and had a huge look of relief on his face!

after that birth, i attended another woman offering doula support. i have seen this woman at a few prenatal visits and i think her daughter resembles my e. they have the same skinny bodies and beautiful faces. with the help of an indo speaker, we conveyed this message to the parents. this mom probably struggled a bit more with labor than many of the other indo women i have attended. she was more vocal, grasping and clawing and kicking her feet. the wonderful midwife who is visiting us from tx, usa was there to apply support to the perineum which prevent even a first degree tear. there was very little post partum blood less, as well. due to a white rice diet, we see a lot of blood loss but this mom told us her favorite foods are vegetables. her healthy eating habits were made evident. this birth was the second boy i have seen here at bumhi sehat. neither his placenta nor his penis were cut, i am happy to report.

last night, i did prenatal visits as the chief blood pressure taker. we had about 22 women come in. one of them i have gotten to know a bit and want to attend the birth of her babe. she had come in sat for a prenatal, sunday on her due date with some leaky fluids but no contractions and then this tuesday she was back for another prenatal. perhaps i will get to attend her labor later tonight! last night, i had another special treat that i promise to tell you all about soon. bali hugs until then!a close up of our sign.