She’s Having A Baby!!!!!!!

Yes, it was something I didn’t
plan on when I started the race. Going to the delivery room? No, I had only
planned on doing ‘ordinary’ ministry that AIM arranged for us. As a board
certified nurse practictitioner, there were a number of medical missionary
organizations I could have been involved. But, for the very first mission
field, I wanted to experience a non-medical, real and raw ministry. Well, there
AIM had cleared the way for me.

Until we arrived in Uganda, on
month #8.

Unlike myself, Emma, my enthusiastic
teammate, who is a registered nurse, had been wanting to explore the delivery
room on the race. Our ministry contact’s wife worked in a hospital as a
clinician. The hospital administrator gave us his permission to go to the
Maternity Ward.  Ministry tasks included
but not limited to: comforting the mother, massaging her back, holding their
hands, praying for them, holding new-born babies, praying for mid-wifery
students, talking to staff, sharing our journey with interested ones, such us
visitors, and so on. When the nursing staffs were busy, it opened a step to
practice nursing in a way it was decreasing the work load for them. For
instance, taking blood pressure, inserting urinary catheter, holding the
mother’s legs and so on.  The ob-gyn
residents were friendly and patient enough to answer the number of questions we
were throwing at them.

There were high and low moments
in the delivery room. Seeing the mother excited after her first view of her
baby gave me euphoria by itself. Witnessing the unsafe practices, such as using
‘clean’ but a- not-sterilized vacuum to pull out a stuck baby made my mind
depressed. My uncle passed away after contracting the notorious human
immuno-deficiency virus, aka HIV.  Even
though I had learned about HIV in school, or cared for many HIV/AIDS patients
as a nurse, the knowledge or experience didn’t match up anywhere close to how I
felt when my uncle was diagnosed—it was a hard hit on the head, and a great wakeup
call.  Then, I made the conclusion that
anyone could have the virus swimming in their blood stream.  And that simple or ignored mistake at the
delivery room could change the mother’s life forever. How sad!