Ok, let me give yall a little history before I get to the good stuff. Adrienne is a 23 year old Kenyan woman we met one of the first days we were in Kiminini. We were immediately drawn to her beautiful smile, bubbly personality, and cute pregnant belly. She is so full of joy and truly loves each one of us. I have felt that God has laid women on my heart a lot throughout this whole year, and Adrienne was somebody I was naturally drawn to.
[Beautiful Adrienne!]
I loved hanging out with her. It wasn’t like other times where I maybe felt obligated to hang out with people or like it’s “the right thing to do”. Adrienne isn’t a charity case, she truly is someone I call a great friend. Almost everyday after our social work, a few of us would go over to Adrienne’s house and hang out with her. She lives with her cousin, Nelly, and takes care of Nelly’s two twin babies that are almost 18 months old.
Adrienne is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She has had a hard life but is one of the most joyful people. She has twin girls that are four years old. Her mother took them from Adrienne because she was young and unmarried. Adrienne has tried to renew her relationship numerous times with her mother, but she wants nothing to do with her own daughter. Through feelings of rejection and hard times, Adrienne still has so much faith in the Lord.
All month long in Kenya, we have been telling Adrienne that her baby is going to come while we’re here. Her due date was June 1st and we’re scheduled to leave Kiminini on May 30th. Everyday we went to her house for tea or to hang out, I would pray over her beautiful belly that the baby was healthy and that we would get to meet her or him before we leave.
[Me, Adrienne and Christy after a baby shower we had for the momma!]
Thursday morning Christy and I went to watch the twins while Nelly was at work. Amanda (a nurse) and Adrienne went to her doctor’s appointment. The doctor didn’t want to check if Adrienne was dialated because of the risk of infection, but everything was still looking good for a June 1st delivery. Later that day, Ginger and I decided to go for a walk to catch the beautiful sunset. As we were walking back up to our house, I saw Nelly walking down the dirt path calling for me. I could tell something was wrong and she asked me to get Amanda because Adrienne was in a lot of pain.
Me and three of my teammates went with Nelly up to the 2 room mud house they live in. Adrienne, who is full of more energy than a 10 year old boy, was walking around the yard chasing the twins around and crouching down every few minutes from her contractions. We went into the house for tea and Amanda began timing the contractions. They were pretty frequent, but Adrienne wasn’t showing too much pain. She asked if Amanda could check to see if she was dialated because she felt the baby might be coming soon. I went into the room seeing Adrienne lying on the floor while I held the candle lantern (there’s no power and night was starting to set in). Amanda looked up at me and said “I can feel the baby’s head. It’s coming tonight”. Excited that we were all here for something we’ve been praying about all month, we came up with a game plan.
Amanda guessed Adrienne had at least two hours or more. We decided that we would ask pastor if we could set up to deliver the baby in the church. There was a lot more room in the chruch and it also had lights. I had this great night pictured in my head: we’ll set up a comfy bed for Adrienne, blankets, all the medical supplies necessary, bring our laptops to listen to some music, and have an all nighter delivering this baby. Ready, break.
Amanda and Ginger walked back to pastor’s house to run the game plan by him and get the church ready.
Christy and I were having tea time again (of course) with the twins, Nelly, and Adrienne lying on the floor next to us. Half way through my cup of tea, I saw a blood smear on the floor. My knowledge of pregnancy is minimal, but I did know that a bloody mucus (sorry, graphic) comes out before the water breaks, so I didn’t panic and figured this was normal. We got Adrienne off the ground and we walked outside so she could get some fresh air.
It was around 7:30 pm at this point and I could tell Adrienne was in more pain. While the contractions were getting worse, I also knew that labor pains could last for hours so I thought this was just the beginning of a long, exciting night. My minimal knowledge of delivering a baby comes from TLC baby shows that would air during the day that I would aimlessly watch while I was in college. I knew my days of skipping class would come in handy some day.
Then everything happened really fast. Adrienne, Christy and I were outside and Adrienne kept telling me she had to poop (again, sorry for the grapic description, but I want yall to really know what happened). She wanted to go sit on the toilet… aka a hole in the ground that drops about 20 feet. Again, I don’t know a lot about delivering a baby, but I told her she will not go sit over a hole and push.
I simply told Adrienne she can poo outside in the yard; the twins do it all the time, so can she. I was holding her hand as she was squatting on the ground and felt some liquid on my feet. I didn’t think her water broke because it wasn’t a lot, but I told Christy to go get the lantern. Meanwhile, Adrienne is still in a lot of pain but simply saying she needs to poo.
I grabbed the lantern from Christy to examine Adrienne. I don’t really know what I was expecting to find/thinking I knew what I was doing, but I guess I just figured I’d check things out. A candlelit lantern isn’t too bright, but when I brought it close to her squatting position, I saw the baby’s head. A BABY’S HEAD! Oh NO, that’s not what I was expecting to see. Crap.
I looked up at Christy and said something along the lines of “get rags or a blanket I CAN SEE THE HEAD!”. She grabbed a burlap sack that was a few feet away in the yard and put it under Adrienne. I’ve never had anything happen this fast in my life while having absolutely no idea what I was doing.
We spent a week with a mid-wife in Malaysia a few months ago having many conversations with Auntie Grace about how to deliver a baby, what to do, what not to do blah blah blah. I tried to replay those conversations in my head and that didn’t go over too well. I had an internal battle. My first instinct as I can see the whole head, is grab it! But then I remembered Auntie Grace saying to just guide the baby out. I reached my bare hands down towards the baby to attempt to guide and it literally just fell out. Fell out of her. So I would like to take the credit and say I delivered this baby, but it kind of delivered itself.
OH MY GOD. A baby just fell out of Adrienne onto a burlap sack in the front yard. OH MY GOD. I jumped up looking for something to wrap the baby in and spotted Christy’s beautiful scarf around her neck. I lunged at her like a spazz and tried to rip it off of her. She frantically untangled it and I don’t remember if I wrapped it around the baby or threw the scarf on the baby as I took off and ran to pastor’s house to get Amanda.
As I was running blindly through the yard of holes and dips, I heard the baby let out a cry…”praise God, it’s alive” I thought. I also heard Nelly screaming and I didn’t know why, but it made me run faster. I know God carried me to pastor’s house because there is no way I did that on my own in the pitch dark, bumpy, beaten path. I’m glad I’ve been running lately so I’m not completely out of shape. I was leaping and hopping and going as fast as I could saying a few choice words with some prayers thrown up in between. I must have been a sight.
Everyone was back in pastor’s house moving at an incredibly slow pace…typical. I was out of breath from running but calmly went up to Amanda and said “the baby is here”. It took a minute for that to register with her and the rest of my team. I ran into my room like a chicken with my head cut off (I have no idea why) and then ran back out the door with my entire team following behind me.
When we got back, Adrienne was in the house laying on the ground with a bunch of blankets and the baby all bundled up. I just started to tear up. I felt like it was my own baby. I was so proud of Adrienne and loved this baby so much. It’s a girl, by the way! I realized when I was running, I didn’t even check to see if it was a boy or a girl.
[Perfect baby and Momma]
There were some Kenyan women in the house now helping out, but even they were kind of freaking out during this whole fiasco. So it’s safe to say that even in Kenya, that was not the typical way to deliver a little nugget. They thought we knew what we were doing during this whole process, when really, it’s quite hilarious that Christy and I were the ones that were in charge. We are two of the most unlikely people to know what was going on, but God definitely gets all the glory for things turning out the way they did. Thankfully, Christy was reading Adrienne’s baby book “Where there are no doctors” earlier that day. While I was gone, she had directed someone to get string to tie around the umbilical cord.
We stayed late with Adrienne and the baby girl, Amira, passing her around and watching Amanda do her nursing thing…she was great. Adrienne was so strong throughout the whole thing. You would barely even be able to tell she was giving birth because she was really just acting she had bad cramps. The night was one of the best nights of my life, but was also a little bittersweet. We found out that Nelly wanted Adrienne to leave the very next day because Nelly couldn’t take care of her three kids, Adrienne and the new baby. Nelly called Adrienne’s mom to see if she would take her but Adrienne’s mom wants nothing to do with them.
[Amanda and I checking on Adrienne and Cas with baby Amira]
Christy and I were up most of the night tossing and turning and praying for God to show up big time in this situation. Seeing a life brought into this world is one of the most exciting and amazing gift that God gives, but some of the joy was overshadowed by the current circumstances.
The next morning, we woke up around 6 to go check on Adrienne and Amira. Momma and baby were perfect and healthy. As we layed with them on the floor, Adrienne started to cry because she didn’t know what to do or where to go. Overwhelmed, we went back for breakfast with the rest of the team and spent the morning in prayer over the situation.
God faithfully showed up big time again. We found out that Nelly was going to let Adrienne stay one more day (we weren’t ready to say goodbye yet) and that Adrienne’s aunt was going to take care of her and Amira. We met her aunt later that day who seemed like a great woman. Adrienne is going to live with her until Amira gets a little older and then plans on moving back in with Nelly and getting a job. Adrienne wants to be a newscaster and I am fully confident that her dream will come true. Words really can’t do Adrienne justice to explain just how amazing she is.
God is so, so good for the way things have worked out the past few days. He answered our prayer about delivering a baby. Back in Nicaragua (month two) we were praying into ministry and Amanda felt like we were going to have something to do with delivering a baby at some point on the race. Six months later, our faithful God provided. He kept the baby and momma healthy; it really would have been a disaster if anything had gone wrong because we had no phone or car. She has a great home to raise Amira. He kept them around for another day so we could have time to say goodbye to our sister that we’ve fallen in love with. God really showed up and provided for Adrienne and knew her needs. It really strengthened my faith, because I had to rely on God knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do for them. It was a humbling experience.
[Me and Amira]
Saying goodbye to Adrienne today was one of the harder moments since being on the race. I know God will look after them and has a great future planned for Adrienne and Amira. I want so badly to keep them to myself, take them back to the states and take care of them, but I know God looks after His children and loves them so much more than I ever can. Please keep Adrienne and her new baby in your prayers for their health, living conditions, future job for Adrienne and an abundance of love for both of them.
[All photos taken by Ginger Larson]
