A typical day for me .. in tanzania.. working in the hospital..

7am- wake up and eat mandazi for breakfast. A greasy unflavoured donut.. good with nutella... bad for your body

8am- meet for intercession or worship depending on what day it is

9am-dala dala comes to pick us up and take us to the hospital. The drive is about an hour because of traffic and a place called Mbagala...which some call the worst place in the world. Why you might ask..well let me tell you..

it has potholes the size of small craters.. the road is a dirt road that seemed at one point to be a paved road but over time turned into crater city because of the rain. Once it rains in Mbagala, its a war zone for days, the stench is unbearable, not only is there the smell of standing water that is green but the smell of exhaust in your face constantly and I gag all the way through it. People shout Muzungu (white person) and grab our arms wanting our full attention bc they dont see many white people. The traffic is horrid, cars, vans and trucks everywhere. If it gets backed up in mbagala (like everyday) cars will drive on the wrong side of the road and through the walkways just so they can get through quicker, which backs it up even more. When we begin to enter mbagala we say that we are entering hell, and its always a relief once we get all the way through.

I like to think about pleasant things so I will refrain from describing the place any further, just wanted to give you a description of what I go through everyday. Bleh.

10am- arrive at Temeke Hospital. There is a total of 14 of us. 12 students and 2 staff, half of us go to labour room and the other antenatal care. Today I was in the labour room, so I walk in there and see many women lying on the beds in pain about to deliver or have just delivered. We change into our uniforms and have a debriefing of where who we are partnered with, pray over each other and the day. We find the women's charts and see how many centimeters they are to see who is farthest along. Some days are crazy and some are relaxed but both for me are exciting and fun.

On a typical day I get to see 4 births, do one delivery myself, weigh the baby and do its vitals, do all the paperwork and checkups for the mother and child, preparation for a delivery, oxytocin, bulb suction, disinfect, gloves, kangas, chord clamps, razor blade, etc.

the smells and conditions of the hospital is something I had to get used to and I have come to the point where I dont feel like I am going to puke everytime I walk in there, which is great!

1:30pm- if i don't have paperwork or a delivery, i go across the street to get some juice, a fried egg and a few pieces of meat.

2pm- dala dala comes to pick us up and take us home back through Mbagala :)

3:30pm-wash uniform by hand and hang on line hoping it wont rain.

4pm-rest

5pm- workout via workout videos with some other girls

6pm- dinner. Usually rice, beans and fruit.

7pm- meeting. Depending on what day it is.

then i have time to rest and relax whether it is reading or watching a movie..

The Theatre

Twins!

read with caution.. details of a surgery

today (last wednesday) i went for the first time to see a C-section! Bethany and i went to antenatal to take the woman who needed the C-section on the stretcher and roll her over to the theatre. We were instructed by one of the nurses to put on green scrubs that were one size fits all and huge shoes. we had a good laugh because we looked ridiculous and wished we had our cameras. we waited a bit (bc everything in Africa takes time and lots of it) we finally rolled her into theatre. they put her on the bed and we watched the entire process take place before our eyes.
they cut through one layer of skin, through a layer of fat, till they got to the muscle, moving and stretching it aside to get through to the uterus.. cutting open the uterus they pulled out the baby butt first only to realize that this women had twins! no one knew until they pulled out the first baby! what a surprise! i not only got to see my first C-section but twins as well!
the mother had 2 healthy baby girls! we prayed over the woman and babies. Beth got the name Anna and i got the name Grace, only to realize later on that Anna means Grace.
they pulled out the woman's uterus, placing it on her stomach and stitched it back up (it looked pretty rad) then put it back into her stomach..stitched the internal layer of skin all the way down and then the external layer of skin.

i hope to see a C-section again these upcoming weeks. i loved it :)

delivery #3

3rd baby i delivered. happy mother! and baby boy Jonathan

they always say 3rd times a charm and in this circumstance they were right! I had a great delivery my 3rd time around! Its my 2nd week in the labour room and i was monitoring 2 women doing their partographs. We waited with the women probably 2 hours till we began to see some progress. I began to monitor the babies heart rate with the Doppler. A normal heart rate for a baby in the womb is between 110-160 and this baby's was beating at 76. the baby was obviously in distress, so we got the doctor's to come over and monitor her and do the same steps that we took in checking the heart rate only to confirm that the baby was in distress. We began to pray over the mother and baby that its heart would begin to beat faster and it would come out quickly and healthy. It was the mother's first child and she had probably 8 people standing around her treating her more like an object than a person, lets just say she looked a bit terrified. They wanted to do a C-section but figured by the time they took her to the theatre, she would deliver.... which is exactly what happened.

The baby was shy in coming out and she did rip.. but long story short .. the baby came out breathing, a bit blue but for the most part, but quite healthy. After the baby was delivered, everything went incredibly smoothly. She lost hardly any blood and was so happy to have a baby boy. My favorite part of the whole thing was to see the mother's face when we brought the baby back to her after we cleaned him up and checked his vitals. Africans rarely show emotion, but when she saw her baby boy she was glowing and couldn't take her eyes off of him.

The mother usually doesn't know what she will name the baby when she delivers, but Beth and I got the name Jonathan. It also reminds me of all the people i know all around the world with the same name and i take some time to pray for the friends and family that have that name.

The mother and baby are worth being cared, prayed over and advocated for, though some nurses here might disagree. I know God answered our prayers as we prayed over that women and her baby and He is glorified through this new life that came into the world as he took his first breath.

deliveries

1st delivery-

everything happened so fast and the baby came incredibly quickly so i don’t remember that much but what i do remember is that i was the first hands to touch that baby when it entered this world.. the first one to hold it.. and cut its umbilical chord. it was a cute baby boy that was very healthy and we had a very happy mother!

my 2nd delivery-

i remembered this delivery quite clearly and at the time wasn’t happy with the delivery.

i was doing the delivery and everything was fine, the baby came out quickly and successfully with the mother only having a small tear. most of the babies have meconium all over them (which is a sign that the baby is in distress inside the womb) but this baby boy didn’t have any on him which was a good sign. Amy who was working with me went to clean the baby and i stayed with the woman to deliver the after birth (placenta). it takes about 10-15 minutes for the delivery of the placenta to come out after the baby and i had sterile gloves on so i couldn’t touch or do anything until it comes out. the mother had blood clots coming out and lost 500 ml. of blood. i was getting nauseous, queasy and lightheaded and started to sweat but had to stay with the woman. i couldn’t look down because she had blood continually coming out and by this time she was in a pool of blood up to her shoulder blades and it was dripping on the ground. it also made it hard because i knew that she was uncomfortable but couldn’t clean up the mess myself because i couldn’t touch anything and didn’t think of asking for help because i felt like i was going to faint. 15 minutes later i delivered the placenta, cleaned her up and stepped outside to get air. i sat out there for awhile and then went back in to see how the baby and mother were doing. the baby wasn’t doing well and its breathing had sped up. it had an APGAR score of 7/8, the lowest out of all the babies we have delivered so far.

as we were driving back to the base in the dala-dala (bus) i thought about the entire experience. i was disappointed in myself, that i didn’t ask for help, that i got sick from smelling and seeing so much blood loss, and disappointed in the condition the baby was in.

There are many moments here when i find things to be overwhelming and often forget why God has called me here. i wouldn’t have a problem packing up my bags and leaving. One of the things that keeps me from doing that is looking into the faces of the women who are desperate to be comforted as they labour alone and knowing that if i can help make a difference in areas of cleanliness and bringing hope to a place of confusion, loneliness, pain and helplessness.. then at least i did something to help others and have God glorified through me.

it was an eventful first week in the hospital. we do rotations every 3 weeks in the hospital so i am there 2 weeks out of the 3 and the other week i am at the base going to the base clinic in the morning, preparing food, having a bit of time to reflect on the shocking circumstances of the hospital which has been good for all of us to get a bit of a break from the chaos.

this week i am at the base. when i was at the hospital last week i communicated with the women with only a few words that i could say in Swahili like ‘breath, very good, very sorry’ and thats about it. i will be learning more words in the next few weeks. With not knowing the language comes the fact that we don’t know how the women feel about white people being there assisting, helping and delivering their babies. Today, though, we found out from one of the doctor’s that the women were saying they really appreciated the care we gave them while we were there. this was exciting for all of us to here and know that they liked it when we were there. we knew we were helping but sometimes its good to get a reassuring response.

its good to be at the base this week and mentally rest from a lot of the stress of the hospital. i am over the initial shock of the hospital and am excited to go the next time because i know what to expect.