Little Orphan Annies

The Baby home is one door down from our clinic, and I would love to say that I spend all my free time hanging with the adorable orphan babies that are there, but the sad truth is that the girls and I have only made it over there once, I think that I just needed a little bit of a push to go over there, this week I got a big push. The Gunderson Family runs both the clinic and the baby home, so most babies that are born and are going to be given up for adoption go right next door. This last week one of my continuity moms delivered, she is only 17 and lives at Bethesda Women’s Shelter. She is the sweetest girl ever and I was her midwife. Her baby will be going up for adoption and staying at the baby home starting Thursday. I can’t wait to go and visit her next door, how lucky am i that she is so close to the clinic. The baby home is so precious, you walk in and are greeted by about 15 crying, screaming, laughing little toddlers... then just past the living room area, downstairs is the nursery where five little ones sleep, eat and poop, and then sleep again. And come Thursday there will be a new addition to the family. It really is so cool having the baby home so close. sometimes we arrive at the clinic and all the little toddlers are at our clinic visiting...they are so amazing!!! Here are a few pics from our visit next door.

A Little Visit

So Mia and i went back to Gerlenes this weekend to visit a couple patience and visit Ger and the Kiddo's...For those of you who are just tuning in Gerelene is the midwife that i worked with in a little viliage, Pinkian, when i first arrived in the Philippines. i have been missing that little community so it was so nice to go and see them. while we were there i stopped by to see one of my old patent. Nacy gave birth about a month ago to the cutest little girl..Monica... it was so good to be there.

Who Will Be The One?

"You will be the one", that is the most commonly used phrase at the clinic...a labor comes in and we patiently wait for the Midwives queue to invite us to handle the birth. Now you may think that we work at the clinic so it is obvious that we get to handle births every time a mom comes in but the truth is we cant assume anything...if i have learned one thing it is that you cant just assume that it is okay that we handle a birth with every midwife, we cant assume that every mom is okay with a Midwife student handling her birth. so we wait....we wait for one of the Filipina midwifes to meekly approach us and say..."you will be the one"...and so it is just that....we will be the one...
This week i was the one for two births...the first birth was quite the gong show, the mom was the sweetest thing on the planet...and at 9cm she was walking around having full conversations and so was her two aunts, mother, husband, myself, mia, Kayla, and lets throw in a few more just for fun....all crammed in this tiny little room...finally Mary Joy reached pushing stage and her mother phones her dad on there cell phone and puts the phone up to her in distressed daughter's ear...at that point i knew that this would be a crowded birth. now the mom at this point is fully dilated and ready to deliver but her contractions were just not strong enough to push out the babe...so another midwife comes into the birth room that was already busting from the seems with people, with a baby from a mother who had just given birth hours prior in the room next-door, she comes in and has Mary Joy breastfeed this new baby to help her contractions get stronger....like i said Gong Show...typically breastfeeding will induce stronger contractions, but this mom was a first time mother, and had obviously never breastfed before. so instead of inducing stronger contractions the mother became very enthralled with this little baby girl and in result stalled contractions altogether. after some position changing and some patience the baby was born and welcomed into the world by everyone and there mother...overall the birth was a little crowded but good.

Mary Joy and new little M.J.

Rowean and I trying out the new sling

Some Random Nonsence

Well, i must say that i met some of the cutest babies this week...This morning Mia and i woke a couple little baby boys up to come out and meet the world...sometimes i wonder if they had a choice to come out or stay i think that they would choose to stay inside there nice warm fully stocked dwelling place...they get automatically fed, no searching the fridge and cupboards for something to snack on out of boredom, they have an automatic heater and cooling system, they dont have to worry about modesty because no one can see them, and they get plenty of company..and anyone im sure can agree if they have been pregnant that the belly is free range once it protrudes out further than...well you get the point. so they have plenty of people paying attention to them. I mean for nine months out of our lives we were livin it up pretty easy. Now look at us...we have to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, differentiate temperatures that will determine what we where..Jacket, tang top, pants, shorts...i mean there is so much to think about. okay okay welcome back to reality alex...here i am 20 years later, and i am blogging about my time in the womb...can you tell i have not been home for almost 6 months. well anyways how cute are these little ones?