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.