My time in Kenya for the past month is hard to put into words. There have been moments where I have laughed more then any other month on the WR. Moments where I have wanted to scream (and sometimes laughed so I wouldn’t). Moments where I shed a few tears, some happy, some not so much. Even a moment where I had to give a shot to a teammate in the bum who had malaria. Its been a month of firsts. I have wondered if this month was worth it. Last night made everything worth it. Ok, it was worth it all along, but in my tiny human brain I was fighting a little with God. As if I knew even a fraction of His plan for me being here.
I‘ll start with how this day started. My team and I met for team time, which is how we start most mornings. I had made a plan to go with Adrienne for an antenatal (baby in the belly) appointment. I’ll back up a little more.
Meet Adrienne.
She is a 22year old women I met probably on my third day here. She lives with her cousin and her family in a mud house not far from the house we are living in. She is beautiful. The first thing I noticed was her belly. It looked like she swallowed a basket ball. A perfect circle. I asked her when she was due. She told me June first. I told her then that I was a nurse and wanted to deliver her baby and so she had to have it just a little early. That’s the first time I touched and talked to her belly ball. She just laughed. Adrienne is a talker, a laugher, and a sweet spirit.
So this morning I walked with her for a couple miles for her baby checkup appointment. She told me it was right up the road We arrive and all is well.
Baby is in a good position, blood pressure is good, everything looks good. They don’t like to do internal checks to see how dilated a women is until she is in labor. I can understand this because it can increase the risk of infection, but Adrienne I felt was close and having more pressure down low.
We began our walk home. It was great to spend time with her talking. She mostly talked the whole time. I listened. She asked some baby questions, I answered. We talked about her family, which is a sad situation I won’t get into now. We talked about God, the wind, food she likes (eggs make her vomit), and cloning. Just another day in Kenya.
We make it back to where she is living. She watches her cousin’s twin 18 month olds. Christy and Alex were watching them until we returned. Alex and I left for the hospital in the bigger town. We wanted to hold sick babies. We returned from the hospital at 5pm. Christy said that Adrienne started having contractions around the time we left, so for about five hours now. Adrienne’s cousin came to get me around 6pm, saying Adrienne was in not okay. I packed a couple things and went to her. Christy, Alex, and Ginger came too.
Adrienne was having a contraction at first sight of her. She was walking around the yard because she felt better walking during her contractions. I felt her belly and it seemed like she was having pretty intense contractions. I tried to time them which was hard because she never stopped talking and wanted us to have tea with her. They seemed between 4-5 minutes apart and lasted for about a minute in duration. She seemed in pain, but was handling it very well. I asked her if I could check and see how dilated she was and she said yes. We went in the only other room there is in the house and I helped her lay down. By this time it was almost completely dark outside and I can hardly see. We get a lantern and Alex comes in to hold her hand and the lantern for me so I could see what I was doing. It was still difficult to see.
Thankfully I had bought gloves for just such an occasion. I inserted two fingers and felt the baby’s head! I knew it had moved down farther because I didn’t feel it low in her belly where it was that morning. It was a crazy moment. One I couldn’t quite believe. She still didn’t feel 10cm dilated and I couldn’t see the head. I guessed only 5cm, but I probably misjudged a little. She just didn’t feel that wide around the baby’s head to start pushing. I am not a mother/baby nurse. I work in surgery! I had clinicals in L&D, but that was awhile ago.
Adrienne didn’t want to go to the hospital. She had no money and says the nurses are mean. Most babies around here are still born in a hospital or birthing center, but some are born at home. To give you an idea of what the hospital cost is, for a cesarean section it is 3,500 shillings or about 45 USD. I don’t remember seeing a vaginal birth price, but it would be even less then this price. Crazy! Hopkins, where I worked charged $1,000 just for the room for one night. She wanted to have the baby at home, but there really was no space. My idea was to ask the pastor if we could use the church and she could deliver there.
Ginger and I decided to go run home together to ask the pastor and gather a few supplies. We got home and I was telling the pastor what was going on and trying to sell our church birth plan. He said there was a room near the church with a bed that we could use. He got around to this in African time. Ginger was getting stuff together and I was getting impatient and wanted to get back.
I was gone not more then a half hour and ready to head back when Alex busts in and said, Adrienne just had the baby! I looked at her for a second like she didn’t just speak English. She ran into the bedroom and ran back out (something we laughed about later). Out the door she shot again and I ran out after her. Allan somehow was running with me too and had a flashlight thankfully. It’s dark and muddy and I had on these shower flip flops and a big bag and haven’t been to the gym in Africa lately. I remember praying the whole time, but I have no clue what I was saying. I just wanted to hear a baby cry. This whole run only took about five minutes, but felt forever. When I was about 50ft away, I heard a baby cry. Relief!
I walk into the house and there is a women with the newborn. She pushes her at me and I check first her umbilical cord to make sure it is tied off. I see that it’s a GIRL! She is making some noise, not crying loud. I want her to be louder.
She looks small. I would guess barely 6lbs, but healthy. I notice she is wrapped in Christy’s scarf and a blanket we had bought for her days before.
I go to Adrienne next. She is laying on the cement floor on a blanket.
Still wearing the same dress she walked to the doctors with me in that morning. She had just delivered her placenta. Her uterus was still contracting. I checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding too much and that she hadn’t torn. I was so thankful she didn’t need any stitches. This also was hard in the lantern light and Alex and Christy were great assistants holding the blanket for a little privacy and the lantern. I felt her uterus, and started to massage that to help it firm up, plus it was helping her pain. I gave her some pain medicine. She was cold. Cassie gave Adrienne her rain jacket to put on.
I told Adrienne I wanted her to try to feed the baby. I was a little worried about the baby’s temperature and knew this would make her work and warm up. This would also help Adrienne’s uterus to continue contracting so she would not bleed as much.
The baby latched on great after a minute. Adrienne made a face of pain, but even that was adorable. Allen and Greg meanwhile are over against the far wall both sitting and holding the twins. That was cute too. Women around here don’t care so much what guys see. I was trying to focus on what a beautiful picture Adrienne feeding her baby was and not think about everything I didn’t have access to. For one, the shots I would normally give, an eye antibiotic I would usually put in the baby’s eyes, a scale and tape measure to get weight and height, and a stethoscope, thermometer, and blood pressure cuff for vitals. I was praising God that the baby seemed to be breathing fine because I had nothing to suction with.
She was born so fast that I was even more worried about fluid in her lungs because it didn’t have much chance to get squeezed out on her way into the world.
Let me go back in time again and tell you how exactly this baby was born when I had just left. The baby came into the world about 20 minutes after I left (so fast!) and about 15 minutes before I got back there and saw the baby. Adrienne said she felt like she needed to poop (the medical term). Alex told her no way was she going into the bathroom over a hole with a 20 foot drop. Alex told her she could poo in the yard so she went outside again. Adrienne squatted a little in the yard. Christy brought a lantern to Alex and Alex thought she was going to help clean her up after doing whatever she needed to do. Instead she saw the baby’s head which was all the way out! She called to Christy to get a blanket and the first thing Christy found was a potato sack. Christy threw that on the ground under the baby’s head and the rest of the baby just slid out fast on to the sack.
For a second Alex said she was scared because the baby wasn’t crying. Christy had just read a book of Adrienne’s that day called, Where There Are No Doctors and remembered it saying you need a string to tie off the umbilical cord. She yelled for string and scissors and a neighbor women brought this. Alex saw the scarf around Christy’s neck and tried to pull that off to wrap around the baby almost choking Christy in the process. Adrienne’s cousin was screaming, her 4 year old daughter was screaming, a neighbor women came and ran away. Clearly even for Africa this was a new experience. Meanwhile Alex had taken off running back home in the pitch black to get me. I’m so glad she did. I’m a little sad I ended up being gone for the actual birth, but we have laughed so hard about this story and the fact that Christy and Alex were the ones there. God really has a sense of humor. I’m proud of them. They did a great job.
I had felt like the Holy Spirit told me during month two in Nicaragua that I would deliver a baby. I have been praying for an opportunity to do so ever since. I’m not sure if this counts or not because I missed the potato sack part, but I’ll take it and am still hoping for another birth. I’ve been told by the pastor and Adrienne that I would deliver a baby in Uganda which is where we are heading next. We will see. It’s awesome to see God answer prayers.
As a nurse it’s really hard to not have what I think I need to treat a patient. What I would have in America. Sometimes what we think we need is not really what we need at all. Sometimes prayer is the most important tool we have and thankfully that is something we can carry on an 11 month backpack trip around the world. It’s sad that I pray more when I don’t have other tools instead, but this is the truth. I should thank God every moment for the tools I sometimes have and the knowledge from Him to know how to use them. We can not do one single thing on our own, not even take a breath. In America it’s so easy to forget that because we really have everything.
I‘m thankful for this experience, thankful that the birth was really about as uncomplicated as a birth can be, and thankful once again that I saw how much God loves me. I’m glad He used a tiny baby to do that.
“You have formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” Psalm 139:13-14
*Stay tuned for baby’s first bath pictures and her name! She was not bathed (didn’t want to drop her body temperature more) or named on her birth night.
*Photos by Ginger Larson* http://gingerlarson.theworldrace.org/
