Happy Mother’s Day!

Well Caity and I have officially been in St Lucia for a week. After our first day working together we went our separate ways and she worked the 7-2 shift while I worked the 9pm-7am shift the last three nights. Because it’s not exactly safe for us to be walking or traveling at night I got a lift from our neighbor and from George.

                                                               Victoria Hospital
My first night was pretty low key, no births but lots of labor support and breastfeeding support. The first birth Caity did the mom named her baby after her and unfortunately needed a blood transfusion followed by a surgery. Baby Katie was starving and spent the night with the midwives to let her Mom sleep. We all passed her around feeding her and rocking her to sleep through out the shift.  The second night I walked in to witness my second birth and observe how these midwives do things. I sat and talked with many of the midwives at night and realized more firsthand how global birth really is. These Midwives are truly amazing, they are all kind and willing to teach me and although we do things differently back in the states we all strive for healthy happy moms and babies. Three of the more progressive midwives I’ve worked with have commented on how they wish they could come to our country and see how we do things and I hope we can make this happen in the future for them. After the second night I walked home at 7am as the roosters crowed and the sun shined.

Last night I went in and worked with yet another group of 3 midwives. I learned that a mom who came in at 33 weeks delivered a stillborn and had a PPH (Postpartum Hemorrhage). Despite what this Mom had just gone through she seemed to be coping with her loss well. I went around and checked on all the mom’s to see if they were all comfortable and needed any support. There are 8 rooms each with 4 beds and the babies all room in unless they are jaundice or have other health concerns in which case they stay in the nursery and the moms wake up and walk to the nursery to feed them. If there are no complications most moms leave after 1 or 2 days. Just so you all know there’s no AC and it doesn’t tend to get cooler than at 78 but usually feels like 90 with the humidity. I have to say I hardly hear St Lucian women complain about much they just accept what they have and seem grateful for the care and support they receive. Among laboring moms and postpartum moms we also have moms who come in and stay on the ward to be more closely monitored if they have pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, or threatened Pre-term Labor.

After everyone was settled in for the night the Midwives told me to go rest and they would come get me if anyone was in active labor. (We had two moms who were ruptured but not contracting much)  About an hour later I got woken up and found a 5th time mom in the delivery room. The midwives told me she was 9cm, (she wasn’t making a peep) and told me to get my gloves on. This was it!!! I was going to catch a baby after only observing two births here. Within 5 min after putting my gloves on I had a tiny 5pd 6oz baby girl in my hands. I promptly clamped and cut the cord showed the mom her baby and handed the little girl over to the nurse for the warmer while waiting for the placenta and getting the mom cleaned up.30min later this mom was snugged back in her bed with her new baby girl who eagerly latched on. Things got quite again. The nurses told me to go back to sleep, I argued with them that I was now wide awake and they demanded that I go rest. (These women are lovely but I wasn’t going to argue with closing my eyes at 2am).

About 45min later I heard a patient yelling “Nurse” “Nurse” I came running out to learn that a girl had just walked in,  was laboring down the hall in a room on her own and was pushing her baby out on the toilet. The patients saw that the lights were off in the main office and didn’t realize the others were resting in the back; I ran in grabbed gloves announced to the midwives what was happening and ran down the hall to find a very scared looking girl sitting on the toilet. I calmly asked her a few questions and learned it was her second baby. She was sitting with her legs tightly closed and when I asked her to open her legs I saw 5cms of baby head, moments later her water broke and her baby boy was in my hands. She looked at me and said “I didn’t know I was pregnant” and started crying. The midwives ran in and then ran out to get supplies to assist me. While they were out of the room her placenta delivered into the toilet and thankfully her bleeding was minimal. All I could keep saying to her was “it’s going to be okay “but I’m not sure that is very true for her. About an hour later I handed her, her son and tucked her into bed. She looked at me thankfully and continued to stare at her new baby, still processing the reality of what just happened.

Mother’s Day rings loud when your job is surrounded by mothers and new babies entering into this world. It’s not always an easy job but I’m so thankful to be able to be there to whitness mothers becoming mothers for the first time or for the 5th time. This Mother’s Day I'm reminded how scary it can be to become a mother especially when you’re not ready for it and hopefully this little boy and his mother will be a blessing for one another.