The Dome and I are Friends

I, Alex Michel, concord the Dome Monday...it was one of those things that i wanted to do before i die... my mom was convinced that by climbing the Dome that i would die so it was a little ironic...maybe the dome should have been the last thing i did...but luckily i made it and still in one piece mostly... it kicked my butt that’s for sure....

The End...kinda

My time in Singapore is wrapping up and it has been such a great time of relaxing, recouping and a little Operah to get myself in the coming home mode. In the mean time, I have been fighting off a nasty little cold that has followed me around for a month and I think that I have finally kicked it...woo hoo!!!! I know I started to give some of you a scare with the combination of a 102 temp. And a fungus type outbreak on my leg that appeared shortly after I hit my shin on the stairs at the clinic, but happy to report there is no sign of Gang Green.... no temp and no Green well I wont finish that sentence for Kayla’s sake. We will have five days to finish saying goodbyes and turning in last minute homework assignments in Manila before we make the big move home. I am so excited to be coming home I cant even believe that its here already...it hasn’t really hit me yet, so if your reading this and thinking she doesn’t sound all that pumped.... it could be one: I’m writing this after a week of insomnia due to the excitement.... two: like I said it hasn’t hit me yet...or three...I’m experiencing somewhat of a bitter sweetness; here people...women respect me as their medical professional.... they let me care for them through their pregnancy, they come to me with real problems and concerns, they let me deliver their babies and stitch them up after words...and home, it will be very different...people still think that midwives are just are granola bars who just sing and dance and wait for the baby to just plop out..(Not quite the reality). I loved my time here; there is nothing else i can say about it. There were a lot of times where i felt like....”What the he..ck was i thinking" but all in all God has changed me in ways that i hope i can exhibit when i get home. Thank you all for your love, your generosity, your prayers.... your emails:)..they meant the world to me while i have been here. This time was worth every tear, every mystery meat, and every baby. Thank you.

Back on the Blogging Horse

I am picturing what it will be like when I walk into Zanders at home right now, and in my mind it will resemble somewhat of an AA meeting...

Hi my name is Alex (Alex)
Hi Alex (coffee junkies greet me in unison)
And I have been blogging for almost one year now. (Alex)
Wow, that’s great Alex (Coffee junkies)
But this month I slipped up (Alex)
Tell us Alex how that makes you feel.
Well you know all the sudden I just stopped blogging.... life seemed so busy.... I lost motivation.... I just sigh (Alex)
Its okay...we still love you.... (Coffee junkies) secretly whispering slacker behind my back

So I decided to hop back on the wagon and blog today, let you in on what the month of August has been like. So I started off the month with going to Olongapo, which is another city up north and out of Manila. There I met up with Leslie Perish for a Childbirth Education course that she was teaching to us Midwives. She runs a great ministry there at the YWAM base. They go into the bars at night and talk to the Bar girls. And if they are interested in getting help and turning there lives around they can join a team of women that used to be in the prostitution industry and join a two-year program that trains and educates them to work and be successful women in their communities. The last night we were there, Leslie took us bar hopping and we played pool and had some amazing conversations with a couple of girls. We were talking with this one girl her name was Joy, it was her 19 day in the business that night, Leslie was able to tell her about the base.... and Joys eyes started flooding with tears as she quickly excused herself to the restroom. It was an amazing opportunity. That week in Olongapo was absolutely incredible.... we saw monkeys as well!!!!!

The next two weeks were so incredibly busy with births and goodbye parties...that I don’t remember having breaks in the days at all. We threw the midwives daughters a princess party, that was so much fun. And anyone that has known me for a little while knows that I love dress up. We bought the girls little princess gowns and bought a princess cake at Goldilocks and they were royalty for the day. So fun! My last week we finished with 10 births, which made for an extremely busy week. Kayla and I also went back to Pinkian to visit some of my very first patients...Magnolia being one of them...it is always so great to see her, I will miss her so much. And of course she never fails to mention how she loves my brother and how she just thought he was so handsome.... she says if he comes back to the Philippines that she will not have a husband then.

And now I’m in Singapore where Kayla and I joined Mia for 10 days of relaxing and recouping and tying up all those loose ends that need to be tied in order to come home. Well I will blog again sooner this time than the last; I swear it. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Oh and one more thing, Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, changed my life! Great book read it; I know you will love it.

Snale Blogging..my specialty

Well just got back from Puerto Galera, where the girls and i got some sun time in finished up a ton of paperwork in preperation for coming home...yay about the coming home part!!!! its coming so soon i cant believe it. We just moved into the Gundersons where we will live until we come home, Jeri Gunderson and her daughter Debs run the clinic and baby home next door. we wont have internet at her house so as if my blogging efforts werent slow far and few they will be even a little more snale like now. okay well just i just wanted to quickly fill you in...talk to you soon.:)

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?