To my amazing friends and family,
The last couple days have been pretty busy here at the clinic, so I thought it’d be fun to let you know what’s been going on. Friday night Naomi and I went to check our email together. We are the only supervisors at the clinic, but we had decided that it’d be okay as long as we are within walking distance. The girls have our cell numbers and we can always run back if we need to. Well just as I finished reading my emails Naomi got a text that they had a labor at the clinic and wanted us to come back. So we did. We jogged actually. Our patient was Ate Becca. She was pregnant with her 6th child, but she was only having contractions every so often. I had actually done her prenatal on Wednesday, which was kind of fun. While I was with her, another patient came in. So Naomi and one of the students were taking care of one, while I was with Sarah taking care of Ate Becca. The baby’s heart beat was pretty fast, and after an hour of monitoring we decided we needed to transport her, even though she was only 2 cm. Naomi’s labor wasn’t really in labor, so they sent her home. So after a little excitement I went back upstairs to my room. About an hour later the labor buzzer went again. The girls on shift went downstairs only to find out that Ate Becca was back, the hospital had turned her away, saying that they had no vacancy. They wrote a referral letter that said “referring from Mandaluyong Medical Center, to: Patients hospital of choice”. Apparently that was us. Still the baby’s heart tones were fast so we couldn’t keep her. As they were explaining this to her, at about 10:30 pm, Girlie, a different labor came in. She looked quite active and was having frequent contractions. She asked if she could deliver at our place. She said she saw the sign when she was walking by. We soon found out that this was her 7th baby. She had the other 6 at the hospital with pain medication, so this was a new experience for her! She was already 8 cm and progressing well. She delivered a healthy baby boy at 12:45 am. Naomi and I were her midwives! There were a couple other girls present, but they opted out of being the primary midwives and asked if they could just observe. The birth itself was somewhat intense, but God is good and both mom and baby are healthy! Two births in Manila already… after being open for less than two weeks! I slept from 3:30 am until mid-afternoon… praise the Lord for air-conditioning! I have never slept that well following a night shift. God is soo good to me!
Ate Becca ended up going to three different hospitals with two of the other midwives at the clinic. The last one said that the baby’s heart beat sounded normal so they were sending her home. There is always the possibility that God totally healed that little baby’s heart, but what we heard was not normal. So we’re praying that God did change it and things will be normal yet. We are just praying the hospital didn’t overlook the complication. Please keep her in your prayers too! I’ll keep you posted as to whether she comes back here.
At about 5 pm the labor buzzer rang again, Susa, a 19 year old pregnant with her first baby arrived. She found out about us through someone that met us on our walk through welfareville on Thursday. God is so good to show us the fruit of our labor already. Only 2 days after walking through Welfareville we get patients directly connected. Susa delivered normally at 10:45 pm, so we ended up having 2 births in one day! 3 births in Manila!
That’s a bit of info on what’s been going on in the clinic. The play-by-plays of every patient will probably not continue for long considering that this will become more normal but I’m really enjoying being able to be excited about each patient that comes in. Taking the time to pray specifically for that patient with the midwives that are not with her at the time.
The atmosphere at this clinic is amazing. God is so completely here! The girls that have been here for the past month have spent a lot of time praying over the clinic and even had a night of worship and prayer in the birth room. I heard that they sang “Let Your Glory Fall” over the birth room. Pretty amazing to prophetically sing “Let your glory fall in this room, let it go forth from here to the nations”. Every weekday morning we have devotions and prayer time together. I have been so blessed already by this time. We bring together our personal needs as well as needs of patients and friends and family from home. We also had a night of worship this week, and I led some songs.
Thank you all for your support as I venture through this new thing. It’s already been such a privilege to be here and see the potential that God has for a place like this! Please continue to pray for us as we dream His dreams for this clinic!
Love Nicole
