Midwives for Haiti Trip Day 6

Thursday October 4th, 2012

Today was a busy day!  I started out working at the hospital and had 3 deliveries.  Babies here are so often born already malnourished and so undersized.  We have been working all week with a mom that's baby was just 6 weeks early, but weighed 2 lbs.  She is SO tiny but so far is pulling through.  One of the deliveries today was a vaginal breech of a about 10 week early baby.  She had a heart rate and I bagged her for a while but she just had a few gasping breaths and the family didn't want to hold her. So we held her not wanting her to die alone.  But after a  few minutes she actually looked a bit pinker and was breathing.  So we were able to arrange to transfer to a better hospital.  She still doesn't have great odds, but at least they are trying.  She would have been fine if she were born back home.

After that intense morning we were happy to spend the afternoon hanging out at Masson Fortune orphanage.  It is an amazing place that takes such good care of the 250 kids they have.  We spent lots of time visiting with Brother Mike and Brother Harry and the kids. We had so much fun!

Then we walked through the town and stopped at the hospital to change the dressing on our poor burn patient then Dr. Steve and the pink jeep met us to drive us home in the dark.

We ended the night playing cards and learning the stories of the origins of Midwives for Haiti from the two people who have been there every step of the way.  Tomorrow evening we are going to visit the site of the very first class under a tree in a nearby town.