October Update
Hello to each one of you!
This month’s update will contain a brief overview of what we have been up to this month as well as a more detailed description of one specific clinic experience we had this month.
Loveda returned from her furlough the beginning of this month and it has been really good to have her back. We had a group of three people from the states here for 10 days this month. Melvin Miller and Timothy Wollman worked to install the solar panels for the birthing center and Makenna Decker, Sylvia’s cousin, came to visit her.
This past Sunday, our whole team went down to Ti Goave to spend one last day with our visitors. A few of us went down early to go to Pastor Levy’s church and then we all met up at the beach for the rest of the day.
The weekend Loveda returned was a wild one. That Saturday morning started out slow, and we were looking forward to Loveda’s return that evening. Sylvia and I bumped volleyball after brunch and then gave Thor and Mebelle, the compound dogs, a bath. We were sitting in the sun, drying off when I got called down to the clinic for an emergency.
A baby had been brought to the clinic by two ladies who walked two hours to get to our clinic. I took one look at the baby they had wrapped in many blankets and rushed inside to get the baby on the warmer and asked Travis to help get the oxygen set up for the baby. The baby was the worst shade of blue and was making a small whimpering sound. Travis called James down and we started getting things prepared to transfer the baby to the NICU in Fond-a-Blan.
One of the ladies went back to get the baby’s mom, while the other prepared to rush with us and the baby to the hospital on our machine. We had the baby on oxygen, and she managed to hang on till we got the hospital. When we got there, we took her to the NICU. After I gave report to the nurses, we headed for home.
By the time we got back around 9 PM, Loveda had returned. She said that we had a lady in active labor in our hospital room. We caught up with Loveda a bit over some supper, but decided to save most of our catching up for a later time. I got into bed around 9:40 PM and then at 10:30 PM I head a clang, clang, clang on the gate. I hopped out of bed and headed down for the clinic with Loveda and Travis. After some laboring the lady gave birth to a stillborn baby around midnight. It was so sad to see her perfect, yet lifeless body. We cleaned the mom up and helped her into bed. We were dressing the baby and giving the family members a chance to hold the baby, when the mom began to hemorrhage. It took us a while to get her stabilized. But we finally had everyone settled in and got back to our houses about 3:30 AM. Loveda and I had our Oreos and milk and tried to process all the happening of the night.
A few hours later on Sunday morning I got up and went down to check on the people at the clinic. I then went back to the compound to meet up with Travis and Sylvia to walk up to church. On the way we met a tired mom carrying her baby to church. I took a turn holding her and when we got to church, her mom asked me to keep holding her during the service. The baby had just fallen asleep when Yvette told me there was an emergency at clinic. So I gave the baby back to her mom and headed back down the trail. At the clinic I found a sick mom and her baby and another pregnant lady. Loveda came down to help me treat the sick lady and the pregnant lady. After taking care of everyone for the moment, we headed back to grab some lunch and a quick nap before the next baby decided to come. We ate lunch and I was able to sleep for a bit before we headed back down to check on our patients. We went back and forth from the clinic a few times before the baby was born later that night at 9:30 PM.
I am thankful that not every weekend is like that, but God is always faithful to give us strength to continue on! Thank you so much for your prayers and support, we really appreciate them.