Vulnerability

First…a bit of a disclaimer (from Sarah O). The midwife in me is coming out in this post and I will give you a warning that I am going to use a few body words. So consider yourself warned… :)

Yesterday I spent the whole day seeing newly pregnant ladies with Beth, doing physicals on each of them. Beth is a wonderful learner and soaks up information so as we did each visit, I threw in a few learning points about different things we saw. With one woman, Beth noticed that her cervix (the part if the uterus that dilates to let a baby through at birth) looked different than the others we had seen – the transformation zone was showing, which often happens in pregnant woman.

The transformation zone is the part of the cervix where the cells are changing…transforming…from one type of textured cell to a flatter cell. Pregnant women and teenagers tend to have this part of the cervix visible. The thing that is important about the transformation zone is that this spot where change is happening is a place that is extremely vulnerable to infection.

Change creates vulnerability.

Isn’t that the truth – it is when change happens that we are most vulnerable. Difficult changes like loss and exciting changes of growth put us in the same place of vulnerability.

Today we talked to 30 pregnant mamas about labor and preparation for the great changes that will happen for them. We reminded them that the midwives here will be with them and help them know what to do in labor. They will not be alone.

Tonight we have one of the teen moms visiting us. Her sister is very ill and took a turn for the worse this evening. As she wept and D prayed for her, we are grateful that she is not alone in this place of vulnerability. And as she cried, her little boy sat on the couch completely unaware bubbling with laughter. Sadness and joy – both in the same room.

For the darkness of hoping
In a world which longs for you,
For the wrestling and laboring of all creation
For wholeness and justice and freedom,
We praise you O God:
For the darkness and the light
Are both alike to you.

-Janet Morely

Breath

posted by Sarah O

This morning we woke to one of the maternity staff members knocking on the door saying she had a very sick baby downstairs. I dressed quickly and went down to see who was there and found a truly ill little 3-month-old girl. Her mama had brought her in yesterday with cold symptoms and a fever and we treated her with antibiotics. Sometime in the night things went downhill and she worsened…stopped eating, started breathing with more effort, fever rising. I am in no way a Peds person, and this was a sick baby. Without extra oxygen, her little body was not doing well staying oxygenated…for those of you who are medical, her pulse ox hung between 67-82%. With the oxygen support, her breathing eased a bit and she made it up into the high 90s.

I was reminded that breath is truly life.

As we loaded her up into the ambulance to transport her, we realized that none of us knew how to attach the particular regulator to the oxygen tank…and the ambulance siren wasn’t working. This was a baby who needed that oxygen and we needed the siren to get us through traffic and to the hospital quickly. It is in those moments of need that I so desire to have what it takes to meet the needs myself – instead we prayed…for someone to figure out the oxygen and for the siren to start working. In the next few moments, Winnie (a beautifully gifted Haitian nurse) connected the oxygen regulator and Dornbos worked her magic and got the siren to start.

Sometimes prayers are answered quickly…I wish they all worked that way! :)

So tonight we are praying for this little one who is in a local hospital with oxygen and IV antibiotics…praying that she is breathing easily and that her body will heal tonight. Praying that this wonderfully attentive mama will rest peacefully this evening…

Spirit of God,
You are the breath of creation,
The wind of change that blows through our lives,
Opening us up to new dreams and new hopes,
New life…

(Christopher Ellis)

Advent Prayer

(the view from the front door of our apartment here)


Come God
Come with the frightened
Come with the poor
Come with the children
Come with those who have always been your friends
Come and lead us where you are living
and show us what you want us to do.

A Child is Born

Witnessing Revia’s stretch marks and pain this evening, I thought of how stretching it is, for all of us, to carry God inside us. How it always pushes us beyond what we think we can bear.

I just wish that there was always something so beautiful and perfect that resulted from our labors.

Meet Revia’s little girl, 6lbs 13 oz of perfection, born at 11:18pm Dec 22nd. Welcome to our world little one.

Jedi pita (Thursday Later)

I read this prayer from O’s advent book: Bread for Tomorrow. It seems so apropos as we laborwatch with this first time mama tonight.

“God our hope and our desire,
we wait for your coming
as a woman longs for the birth,
the exile for her home,
the lover for the touch of his beloved,
and the humble poor for justice.”
-Janet Morley

Thursday

O & I worked at the prenatal clinic today. It was a beautiful and busy day.

Not only was there special food, gifts and a Christmas party to tend to, but many many pregnant women to vaccinate and do prenatal visits with.

Heartline does an amazing job of caring for women in the prenatal program—making sure they are taking prenatal vitamins, drinking water, and eating when they can.

It is very difficult for some of the moms-to-be to gain weight in pregnancy because they just don’t have access to enough food. That just isn’t right. And so Heartline provides them with a high protein meal when they come for prenatals each week.

In addition to all the checkups and fanfare, the tying off the extra digit of a newborn(!),---->

we also needed to vaccinate about 35 women against tetanus; and because there was so much to do, a Community Health Worker was born. We had the professionals deal with the pregnancy related stuff, and the tying off of the extra digit of a newborn in the program. And I took a break from making art with small children in order to learn to draw up injections and then stick needles in people’s arms. Yikes. I hate hurting people-even when the hurt is a good thing—which is one of 497 reasons I never pursued a medical career.

Beth, one of the midwives here at Hearline, graciously allowed me to practice on her arm (sorry Beth) and then I was off on my own! I have a way of finding myself in unexpected roles here in Haiti Every. Single. Time. :)

I tried to distract the women by talking with them and asking a lot of questions as I was puncturing their arms with attenuated Tetanus. As you can see, it was totally effective in distracting them from the pain.

And having had a professional tetanus vaccine myself, I remember it being one of the most painful I received in my litany of traveling-overseas-drug-cocktails’ over the years. So thanks to me, a lot of women are waking up this morning with achy shoulders and probably weren’t able to sleep last night. Merry Christmas!

One hilarious thing happened during the vaccination clinic, as I was ineffectively distracting Samide from her shot. I introduced myself as Sarah, and this tall thin lady in her 30’s with a round belly protruding from her white silk dress said, “Oh, like Madam Abraham” (Abraham’s wife). I said, “Yep, but I’m hoping I won’t be 100 before I have my first baby”. I don’t know if it was that response, or a reaction to the tetanus, but that lady laughed and laughed so hard when I responded that way, that I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still laughing now.

Nou la! (We're Here)

(Written Wednesday) We have arrived! Travel was great and we had some wonderful reunions with our dear friends here. It’s been easy to slip right into our life here in Port-au-Prince. I think it is a profound gift that we are able to live in both of these vastly different worlds, and as soon as we go from one to the other, it feels as though we have never left. It’s beautiful here--in the 70’s with a lovely breeze. More and more rubble has been cleared since our last trip. I feel hopeful and alive.

We have a mom in early labor, but are sending her home to rest until things pick up. We ran to the grocery store for a few things this afternoon and our friend who lives here said to us, “I’ve got Starbucks coffee if you’d rather have that than Haitian coffee”. We ran out of café Rebo (Haitian coffee) in CA about a month ago so I was eager to stock up on Haitian coffee. It seems like it is human nature that we always want what we don’t have…

Old Blog Post

Posted on Heather's blog earlier this year...wrestling with poverty in the US: . http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/2011/08/part-three-of-guest-post-by-sarah.html

Sometimes living between these two worlds feels like living on different planets, other days it feels like there are many similarities... (Heather is one of our friends at Heartline in Haiti). The work they do is amazing: http://heartlineministries.org/

Tomorrow we will be having a Christmas party and doing pedicures with the teen moms of Harbor House. We love love love these people and this program:

http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/2011/03/harbor-house-people-place.html

Grateful to be spending Christmas here again!

Headed "home" for the Holidays

In about 9 hours we will be on our way back to Haiti for the holidays! We can't wait to celebrate Christmas and ring in the new year with some of our favorite people on the planet. We'll be updating as we are able--thanks for checking in here!