First Day at the New Clinic and Loving the Roof

This morning we returned from my first 24-hour shift at the Antepolo Birthing clinic. I had a great first day, we started the morning roughly around 4:00am, well let me rephrase it was supposed to start about that time, but I believe my snooze button aloud me to sleep till 4:45:) we arrived at the clinic at 6 and started the day, there were a few labors that were going on, but we ended sending them home until they progressed a little further. The Midwifes at the clinic are wonderful and I spent most of the day trying to learn their names. Overall it was good experience, I was nervous about it at first, I hate first days at a new place, but this was not one of those scary first day disasters. We had one Birth last night, which I just observed to see their style of birth management.
We arrived home this morning to our little charming house in Mandaluyang. Its like our little hideaway, tucked away on Bonofacio Street. My favorite thing about this house is not the scary rooster that has his unique cookoocachoo call at 4am every morning, but I love the rooftop, upstairs and unto the roof is our own adorable balcony. On all four corners you see different classes of economic stasis, these are the rooftops of what would be "middle class" here in the Philippines if classes were be applicable. In the Philippines something that i have observed is that there is: POOR, Poor, And Rich. Just beyond the rooftops is one of many of the Manila city skylines. From our rooftop you can see four different city districts full of beautiful city skylines. Plus i love having the girls here, we had a nice night of preparing for Spiderman 3, which comes out on Wednesday here. We watched the 1st adn the 2nd, a little movie night on the rooftop of course!


So the tires on the tin roof is not just for looks, it helps the houses not blow away, seriously!

More pictures from looking out from our blacony:)

Bye Orange House...

Well tonight is my last night in the Orange house, Mia and I will be joining the other girls in Mandaluon, which is about a hour from our house and the clinic here in Pinkian. We will still be in Manila just working at another clinic in a nearby city in Antepolo. it has been such a busy week and i cant believe what all has been done. Saturday we were called to a birth about noon, she was a first timer and had the fastest labor i have seen since being here...Maicy had her baby and we were out of there and on to prenatal day at the clinic by 3ish...we spent the rest of the day at prenatal’s having a great time and saying our last goodbyes. I also got to visit with one of my moms Evangelen…maybe you remember her, she was the Avril fan...
The next day we celebrated Rose's 7th Birthday party, Rose is Gerlenes middle daughter, it was so much fun and lots of chocolate cake was involved! Shortly after cleaning up from the party we started a "While you Were out" project on the Birth room...although Gerlene knew that we were painting and remodeling the room, she was still so surprised at the finished product. Today this afternoon, we finished the birth room and are still covered in Filipino blue paint…:) ill have from beginning to end pictures up soon. Now we are just finishing up packing...well okay...so I just started...but I swear I’m almost done! We leave tomorrow morning across town...I cant wait to join the girls...Dance Party!

Grace wearing her chocolate cake

Prenatal Saturday, she is such a cutie...

Maicy gave birth to this little cutie, Ar'Francis

Outside the birth room window, i love this veiw...ill miss it for sure...

Angry Avril Music, it Works!

Although this picture was taken at a very quiet, peaceful time in the morning while Evangelene was laboring in the next room over, about 5 minutes later here comes Evangelene, moving into transitional stage, she comes waddling into the room and blasts some Avril Lavine on her stereo, this wasn't like she turned some peaceful music so she could try to relax and concentrate, she chose Angry Avril; you could literally hear the music coming from this little hole in the wall house throughout the whole community. But this is how Evangelene wanted to labor, and it totally worked, baby was borne about 30 minutes later!

Me and J. J. shortly after being brought into the world with some musical accompany by Avril.

Change!!!

Change is consistently happening all around me, you stop to smell the flowers one time and the whole world’s appearance has changed. Change is something that you can always count on, and especially in the season of life I am in currently. In just a couple weeks I will be moving to a new city here within Metro Manila, Antepolo will be our new assignment. And as excited as I am to have this change of scenes and as happy as I am that this clinic will be busy and I will get a lot of clinical experience, which I will need to fulfill my requirements by September, I am Heartbroken to leave Pinkian and Gerelene’s clinic. I have been welcomed into so many homes and have gotten to be apart of these women’s lives. It is so hard to have to start saying goodbye them. And although I wont leave for a couple more weeks I want to spend as much time as I can soaking up this place. Change happens so fast, and once it starts you have to make a decision to stay on that train or get off. As much as I want this blur of events to slow down so that I can take a breath and regroup, life will not wait for me, who knows what I might miss.

Community Happiness

Every other day we take a stroll into Pikian where we are surrounded by slums; to the right we have the neighborhood kids taking a bath outside of their house while their mom washes the clothes and watches the kiddies have a play day in the tub of bubbles and water. On the left is cute little shack that is warm and welcoming; inside you find a happy little family, two kids and a brand new baby boy. This community is a network of families that rely on one another for strength and support. When one family can not afford a weeks worth of meals for their family or a hefty hospital bill, they are right there to help each other out. They are all in this life together, through thick and thin.

March

Looking back on the month of March it really did go flying by. I remember thinking to myself that April seemed like an eternity away and now we have started to walk down April’s road. But what on earth will happen? March has been the month of first, the month of thrill and the month of grief. Like I said, this month has flown by...up until this last week, I was to be the primary midwife for two women this week. Both women I grew to love and felt very emotionally involved. I chomped at the bit for them to go into labor, and finally they did. Riaza started labor at 2 am Saturday morning, she did so well through her whole labor up until the very end, she was so afraid of pushing that she refused to let herself, she spent every contraction working against her bodies urge to have the baby; by the time we decided to transport she had completely stopped her contractions, we call that an emotional dystocia, when women are able to stop labor because of their fears or emotional trauma. I know it sounds bogus but its true.
Sheila was in labor the next morning bright and early, she also labored very well and up until late pushing stage the babies heartbeat started to crash, we transported immediately. The sad thing about all this is not that we couldn’t be the ones to deliver this baby and not that they had a hospital outcome, but that we had a relationship with these women, I got to know them and their families more and more at every prenatal, we had relationships with them and when we get to deliver for them we get to properly send them home with their babies and then check up on them the next day, we get to say goodbye to them and be involved with the baby when it takes its first few breaths of air. The second we transport its like giving them away, we don’t get to say goodbye, we don’t get to see them for a few days after and even then we are just like visitors now, ah...well Im happy to inform you that the babies are doing great now and the moms are doing well.

One our moms daughters at a prenatal day at the clinic

This is a view standing outside of our clinic, its beautiful isn't it...


Despite all the sadness with the transports this week, we were able to suprise one of our co-workers Ate Doris's daughters with a new Guitar as a graduation gift. Dian is such a talented singer and guitar player, she has won local competitions...all playing on a borrowed guitar that was plastered in Sponge Bob Square pants stickers, nothing against him but..., the wood was splintering off of the neck and it just had a little too much character. She was so happy to play with her new guit, she proudly played for us some of her favorite songs, she is amazing.