Today I am thankful for the beautiful flowers that God has so wonderfully made. Thank you Lord for your wonderful creation!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Monday, April 9, 2012
Easter blessing
I love catching babies on a holiday. This makes a day that can often be sad, lonely & long into a blessing. Sometimes God answers prayers just how we pray them, this was the case with baby Justin Leo's birth. I had asked God to let me catch a baby on Easter and that she would arrive in the morning and deliver in time to go home that night.
My labor text in advance notice, I changed into my scrubs, made the bed and ate lunch before she arrived. When talking to Sara, I stated that as long as she delivered by 1pm and had no problems she would be able to head home that night (if they stay over night we have to check on them every 4hrs and discharge in the morning).
She arrived about 12pm and gave me a strained smile. I introduced myself, took vitals and asked questions about her labor. This was her 2ed baby, her first was born in 2006. I asked her as I went to check the baby's heartbeat before doing the i.e. if she was scared of the pain, she said yes. I tried to assure her that she was very strong & to focus on the fact that very soon she would be holding her baby boy in her arms. She smiled.
Between the time it took me to do the i.e. (I found 6-7cm) and my supervisor to follow me up she had already dilated 2cm. She cried to her mother during contractions and I worked on helping her breath through them. Laying on her side because the heartbeat was a little low, she tried not push during each contraction. Pretty soon I saw slight vaginal opening and my supervisor told me to let her try pushing.
Rolling over on her back and giving a push, her bag of water was already 5cm visible! A moment later it burst open, revealing moderate mac staining. The mother had a strong, push, but listened well as I instructed her to breath, ha ha, through crowning. I have read that this part is called the ring of fire, maybe you mothers who have done natural births would agree?
Little Justine's head was slowly was born, as I was assisting with the birth of the rest of his body I noticed a nuchal hand (where the hand is up by the face). This was a first for me and thankfully in my inexperience I did not cause her to tear. The sweet little Easter baby was born covered in vernix and amniotic fluid at 1:02pm and gently placed on his mothers bare belly.
Little Justine Leo, weighted 3.5kg (7.7lbs) and let his feisty personality shine through by screaming through his first bath and I mean screaming & making a fuss if he couldn't latch on to the breast quickly enough :) Please pray for mamma, baby, & big brother as they get use to life together. Praise God for His blessings of new life!
My labor text in advance notice, I changed into my scrubs, made the bed and ate lunch before she arrived. When talking to Sara, I stated that as long as she delivered by 1pm and had no problems she would be able to head home that night (if they stay over night we have to check on them every 4hrs and discharge in the morning).
She arrived about 12pm and gave me a strained smile. I introduced myself, took vitals and asked questions about her labor. This was her 2ed baby, her first was born in 2006. I asked her as I went to check the baby's heartbeat before doing the i.e. if she was scared of the pain, she said yes. I tried to assure her that she was very strong & to focus on the fact that very soon she would be holding her baby boy in her arms. She smiled.
Between the time it took me to do the i.e. (I found 6-7cm) and my supervisor to follow me up she had already dilated 2cm. She cried to her mother during contractions and I worked on helping her breath through them. Laying on her side because the heartbeat was a little low, she tried not push during each contraction. Pretty soon I saw slight vaginal opening and my supervisor told me to let her try pushing.
Rolling over on her back and giving a push, her bag of water was already 5cm visible! A moment later it burst open, revealing moderate mac staining. The mother had a strong, push, but listened well as I instructed her to breath, ha ha, through crowning. I have read that this part is called the ring of fire, maybe you mothers who have done natural births would agree?
Little Justine's head was slowly was born, as I was assisting with the birth of the rest of his body I noticed a nuchal hand (where the hand is up by the face). This was a first for me and thankfully in my inexperience I did not cause her to tear. The sweet little Easter baby was born covered in vernix and amniotic fluid at 1:02pm and gently placed on his mothers bare belly.
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| Happy midwife, happy mama & sweet baby |
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| Justine Leo |
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| Proud Grandma |
Thursday, April 5, 2012
What in the world am I doing Lord?
I go through fazes where I miss home, my family & my friends more keenly then other times. Lately I have been a bit more homesick than normal. It is during these times that I start to ask God more often, what in the world I am doing.
My friend Kim Davey still works in the Didinga Hills of S. Sudan where I lived, served, and feel in love with the land and the people. Didinga continues to be a hard place to work with lots of spiritual warfare and challenges. This past week Kim wrote me an email about a birth she had witnessed. This is a bit of the story:
"A pregnant woman had been taken down to Chukudum (a 12 mile hike) because she was bleeding, to the point of death. There were no doctors at the clinic there and the bleeding had seemed to stop so her family brought her back up the mountain.
I Found her at the clinic a week later, bleeding, with her placenta half out. She had been bleeding for a week and was quite anemic.
Her mother, aunts and the local midwife worked hard, broke her water and pulled the woman's daughter from her. The baby had been dead for a while.
It was hard to see, hard to hold her down, see her pass in and out of conscienceless, see her pain, hear her say she was dying and ask if her baby was dead...
It was a miracle that God spared her life. I am thankful. Medicine says she should have died, but she lives."
That is why God has called me to become a midwife, so that these hands of mine can show His love to women like this young woman. While I know that I will probably still see women with empty arms or babies with no breast to feed them. I also know that with my training and God's help, when I return I will be able to help keep women's arms full. It is not an easy calling and often I am afraid of what the future will hold. Yet, God is faithful, He will carry, guide and help me.
* Please pray for the Didinga people. Pray that they would turn and follow Christ
* Pray for Kim and the other missionaries as they work & live to share Christ in this difficult place
* Pray for me, that I would learn, learn, learn all that I can while in school, so that I will be well prepared to return to S. Sudan to serve the Lord there.
* Pray that I would not grow weary in doing good.
* Pray that I would keep my eyes on Christ and find my hope, peace, and joy in Him alone
My friend Kim Davey still works in the Didinga Hills of S. Sudan where I lived, served, and feel in love with the land and the people. Didinga continues to be a hard place to work with lots of spiritual warfare and challenges. This past week Kim wrote me an email about a birth she had witnessed. This is a bit of the story:
"A pregnant woman had been taken down to Chukudum (a 12 mile hike) because she was bleeding, to the point of death. There were no doctors at the clinic there and the bleeding had seemed to stop so her family brought her back up the mountain.
I Found her at the clinic a week later, bleeding, with her placenta half out. She had been bleeding for a week and was quite anemic.
Her mother, aunts and the local midwife worked hard, broke her water and pulled the woman's daughter from her. The baby had been dead for a while.
It was hard to see, hard to hold her down, see her pass in and out of conscienceless, see her pain, hear her say she was dying and ask if her baby was dead...
It was a miracle that God spared her life. I am thankful. Medicine says she should have died, but she lives."
That is why God has called me to become a midwife, so that these hands of mine can show His love to women like this young woman. While I know that I will probably still see women with empty arms or babies with no breast to feed them. I also know that with my training and God's help, when I return I will be able to help keep women's arms full. It is not an easy calling and often I am afraid of what the future will hold. Yet, God is faithful, He will carry, guide and help me.
* Please pray for the Didinga people. Pray that they would turn and follow Christ
* Pray for Kim and the other missionaries as they work & live to share Christ in this difficult place
* Pray for me, that I would learn, learn, learn all that I can while in school, so that I will be well prepared to return to S. Sudan to serve the Lord there.
* Pray that I would not grow weary in doing good.
* Pray that I would keep my eyes on Christ and find my hope, peace, and joy in Him alone
Thankful Thursday
Life gets going so fast sometimes that I forget to stop and count my blessings. I have decided to pause on Thursdays and praise God for His blessing, little & big. I hope that you will pause today to count your blessings too.
Today I am thankful for my friend Hannah. We meet in 2007 at a Bible study, both shy, both loving dogs and violin music. She started out giving me violin lessons but, we ended up talking instead. We are as different as can be and yet our love for the Lord brings us together. I am thankful that God gave me such a great friend in Hannah. Happy birthday beautiful Hannah! May God bless you today and always. Can't wait to eat Chinese food and talk and laugh with you again.
Today I am thankful for my friend Hannah. We meet in 2007 at a Bible study, both shy, both loving dogs and violin music. She started out giving me violin lessons but, we ended up talking instead. We are as different as can be and yet our love for the Lord brings us together. I am thankful that God gave me such a great friend in Hannah. Happy birthday beautiful Hannah! May God bless you today and always. Can't wait to eat Chinese food and talk and laugh with you again.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Thankful Thursday
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| This Thursday I am thankful for my fun walking buddy, Clover |
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| And for a dirt road that leads to a wide river that I can wad in, talk to God and think :) What are YOU thankful for? |
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Agriculture training at RLC- Part 1 Goat raising
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| Last week I went with 4 other girls for agriculture training at RLC. I really enjoyed and learned a lot during the goat raising class |
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| We learned about milking |
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| I love the fun personalities of goats :) This doe decided to get up in my face, I didn't mind :) |
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| Fast effective milking is a learned art that I hope to become good at one day |
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| One my way to be a good goat milker |
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| Weighting the milk |
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| Guess what I am about to do??? |
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| Castrating a young goat |
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| It takes some concentration |
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| And proper technic |
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| I didn't find it too hard and... kinda fun |
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| If you would like to give it a try, this is how you do Bloodless castration; 1st. Cut the tip 2ed. push one testicle out, use the razor to gently cut through the membrane 3rd. Pull a tightly fastened membrane off the testicle and push all the membranes back into the testicle sack 4th. Twist the testicle 5 times, make sure to count, so you don't for get 5th. Rip the testicle from the goats body 6th. repeat with testicle #2 7th. Clean with a mixture of gin, ginger and turmeric 8th. Return the newly weathered goat to his pen |
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| Finishing up |
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| Anyone up for mountain oysters?? |
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| HELP ME!! |
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| Brenda giving the final pull |
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| Kelly is proud of her first castrating experience |
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| Eileen did a great job as a city girl getting dirty doing farm work |
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| Juniper was a natural |
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| Count them up. How many goats did we castrate? |
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| Getting instructions on how to de-bud a one week old kid goat |
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| This one was a lot harder for me than the castrating, but I did it! |
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| Finishing up |
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| The freshly de-budded kid, he was sad |
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| I gave him a little loving before returning him to his pen |
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| Learning about hoof trimming. I had done it a little bit before, but I learned I had not been talking off enough of the hoof |
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| The stand of de-budding |
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| Our instructor was a good teacher out in the barn |
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| We learned about mixing feeds & growing crops to feed your dairy goats |
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| Soybeans |
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| Salt & shells |
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| The grain before mixing |
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| mixing the grains back and forth |
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| The farms grain storage for their own animals and to sell to local farmers |
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| A pretty nanny goat |
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| These animals are great for small farmers and their milk can bring a malnourished child back to health |
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| For the first two weeks they live the kids with their mothers. For 2wks to 3 months they put the kids in their own pen during the night so that they can milk the does in the the morning and return the kid back in with the mother during the day. After the kid is 3 months old it is weaned and the nanny gets milked twice per day |
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| Nubin does We were told they are the best tropical milk goats |
I have dreamed of having milk goats for a long time. My time at RLC gave me renewed vision for my future ministry in Africa and how milk goats can fit into that vision. I am excited to see what the future holds! Part 2 of RLC training coming soon
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Born in the bathroom
I was first up on rotation last evening. The first labor that arrived was a early twenties G1 (first pregnancy), she was smiling as she walked through the door and briskly went to the CR (bathroom) to pee & wash. I then ushered her to one of the beds, to take her vitals, listen to baby's heartbeat and talk to her about her labor.
When did your labor start, I asked her? "oh last night, but just like period cramps, but this morning there was some blood and that is why I came," was her reply. I explained to her about the mucus plug, she had no signs of contractions, but I asked again about her labor pains. "Oh, the pain from last night is less now." Smiling to myself I gently explained that for your first baby early labor can talk a long time and that she needed to go home and just go on with life like normal until her contractions came and were about 5 min apart, then she could return. "OK, I think I am just a little excited, because it has been a week since my due date." What a sweetie :)
Later on, three hours before shift change around 7pm I tell another student that my fully needs to come before 8pm. This way she can have her baby and get to postpartum before I have to go. About 20min later a labor comes waddle in and she was not smiling. She tells us she is waiting for her husband, who is coming very soon and I think to myself, "well she must have a little time," and have her go to the CR. I start filling out paper work, as I wait for her. All of a sudden the bathroom door flies open, she is standing with her legs apart with a shocked look on her face. The baby is coming NOW!
I rush to her while pulling a glove from my pocket onto my right hand and about take down my supervisor as she is racing in the opposite directions for gloves. I managed to have the one glove on by the time I walked the 7 quick steps over to the CR. The head was already about 8 cm visible and I had no time to pull on the other glove. I just reached my hand down to support the quickly emerging head. It always amazes me how fast your mind can work, because mine sure was. I was thinking about the ungloved hand and the fact that I can't hold a slimy newborn with one hand above a tile floor.
In a matter of seconds of arriving to the mother, I was calling head out, baby out and yes using that ungloved hand, there was not another option. Happy to feel the baby squirm in my hands I suddenly noticed a cord wrapped around his neck. "OH" I quickly thought, "None of my catches as of yet have had a cord wrap, nor has their mother been standing up!" I am pretty good at jumping into action when I know it is up to me to fix the problem. I quickly turned baby one way, nope wrong, then turned and flipped him the other... actually I am not quite sure what I did, or how many times it was wrapped, but I got it unwrapped. By this time my supervisor arrived, also with only one hand gloved and the baby was crying. She quickly cut the cord and we transferred baby and the shocked, but happy mama to a bed.
This was the mother's third baby and all came fast from what I hear. She delivered the placenta with no problems and two hours later after nursing her baby and drinking some water & milo, jumped out of bed, instructed her husband to clean up some drips of blood and marched to the CR. What a strong mama! What a fun crazy birth! What a treasure to be able to be a midwife! Have I mentioned that I love being a midwife? :)
When did your labor start, I asked her? "oh last night, but just like period cramps, but this morning there was some blood and that is why I came," was her reply. I explained to her about the mucus plug, she had no signs of contractions, but I asked again about her labor pains. "Oh, the pain from last night is less now." Smiling to myself I gently explained that for your first baby early labor can talk a long time and that she needed to go home and just go on with life like normal until her contractions came and were about 5 min apart, then she could return. "OK, I think I am just a little excited, because it has been a week since my due date." What a sweetie :)
Later on, three hours before shift change around 7pm I tell another student that my fully needs to come before 8pm. This way she can have her baby and get to postpartum before I have to go. About 20min later a labor comes waddle in and she was not smiling. She tells us she is waiting for her husband, who is coming very soon and I think to myself, "well she must have a little time," and have her go to the CR. I start filling out paper work, as I wait for her. All of a sudden the bathroom door flies open, she is standing with her legs apart with a shocked look on her face. The baby is coming NOW!
I rush to her while pulling a glove from my pocket onto my right hand and about take down my supervisor as she is racing in the opposite directions for gloves. I managed to have the one glove on by the time I walked the 7 quick steps over to the CR. The head was already about 8 cm visible and I had no time to pull on the other glove. I just reached my hand down to support the quickly emerging head. It always amazes me how fast your mind can work, because mine sure was. I was thinking about the ungloved hand and the fact that I can't hold a slimy newborn with one hand above a tile floor.
In a matter of seconds of arriving to the mother, I was calling head out, baby out and yes using that ungloved hand, there was not another option. Happy to feel the baby squirm in my hands I suddenly noticed a cord wrapped around his neck. "OH" I quickly thought, "None of my catches as of yet have had a cord wrap, nor has their mother been standing up!" I am pretty good at jumping into action when I know it is up to me to fix the problem. I quickly turned baby one way, nope wrong, then turned and flipped him the other... actually I am not quite sure what I did, or how many times it was wrapped, but I got it unwrapped. By this time my supervisor arrived, also with only one hand gloved and the baby was crying. She quickly cut the cord and we transferred baby and the shocked, but happy mama to a bed.
This was the mother's third baby and all came fast from what I hear. She delivered the placenta with no problems and two hours later after nursing her baby and drinking some water & milo, jumped out of bed, instructed her husband to clean up some drips of blood and marched to the CR. What a strong mama! What a fun crazy birth! What a treasure to be able to be a midwife! Have I mentioned that I love being a midwife? :)
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| Baby Andy |
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| Ata Ermie my supervisor, baby Andy & I |
Sunday, March 4, 2012
My first labor story
I have been hesitant to write birth stories on my blog. It is hard to know how much and what to share. But I know that (or at least I think) you would like to hear some of my stories. Be advised, I am a midwife :) (I have purposely left the mother's name out for her privacy)
Once you start catching babies it is like an addiction, you just want to keep doing it again and again, no matter how busy or tired you may be. It had been nine long days since my last catch, when she walked in the door. a pretty girl of 20 years old in labor with her first baby. She smiled at me, but I could tell she was in pretty active labor. After taking her vitals, listening to baby's heartbeat and palpating the position. I did an i.e. to assess dilation. She was 9cm with only a lip on top left to go and I confirmed SROM (that her water had already broke).
She wanted to lay on her side in bed, but I told her it may take a long time for her to complete dilation if she didn't do some exercising. The best being hands and knees. She tried it and didn't like that position. Next was the birth ball and she found this position much more comfortable. I stayed with her, helping her breath through her contractions and rubbing her back.
About two hours later she started feeling "poopy" this can mean that she really does need to use the bathroom, but more likely it is time to start pushing. After talking to my supervisor we advised her to do a trial push and when she pushed the baby's head was right there. She ended up pushing for a little over an hour on her side. Her contractions were strong, but short. I encouraged her through them, telling her what a great job she was doing. In between she would rest, then right before she started pushing again she would make eye contact with me and smile. It was beautiful.
Slowly her baby's head crowned and she slowly and beautifully pushed her 7.7lb baby boy into the world with only a tiny skin split. It was a beautiful birth and what an amazing gift to watch a woman become a mother for the very first time. Her baby boy was extremely cute and started nursing right away, his mama was beaming with joy and pride at her son.
If you look at the pictures on the left he is catch #11 :0)
Once you start catching babies it is like an addiction, you just want to keep doing it again and again, no matter how busy or tired you may be. It had been nine long days since my last catch, when she walked in the door. a pretty girl of 20 years old in labor with her first baby. She smiled at me, but I could tell she was in pretty active labor. After taking her vitals, listening to baby's heartbeat and palpating the position. I did an i.e. to assess dilation. She was 9cm with only a lip on top left to go and I confirmed SROM (that her water had already broke).
She wanted to lay on her side in bed, but I told her it may take a long time for her to complete dilation if she didn't do some exercising. The best being hands and knees. She tried it and didn't like that position. Next was the birth ball and she found this position much more comfortable. I stayed with her, helping her breath through her contractions and rubbing her back.
About two hours later she started feeling "poopy" this can mean that she really does need to use the bathroom, but more likely it is time to start pushing. After talking to my supervisor we advised her to do a trial push and when she pushed the baby's head was right there. She ended up pushing for a little over an hour on her side. Her contractions were strong, but short. I encouraged her through them, telling her what a great job she was doing. In between she would rest, then right before she started pushing again she would make eye contact with me and smile. It was beautiful.
Slowly her baby's head crowned and she slowly and beautifully pushed her 7.7lb baby boy into the world with only a tiny skin split. It was a beautiful birth and what an amazing gift to watch a woman become a mother for the very first time. Her baby boy was extremely cute and started nursing right away, his mama was beaming with joy and pride at her son.
If you look at the pictures on the left he is catch #11 :0)
Friday, March 2, 2012
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