Catch Up

Here are just some random updates:

This is what shrimp really look like?

Night out to a Filipino buffet....Mercy ambulance hooked us up with a ride

Stocked up on fruit, a wonderful moment

I Love Pregnant Women

This is Beth doing her health teaching on Fetal Development before prenatal exams

Bellies everywhere

They were really enjoying the health teaching

Baby Jackson and Night Shift

NIGHT SHIFT! We want to sleep

Baby Jackson in his warming blanket-sooooo hot

This is baby Jackson (I named him that but I'm not sure it will actually be his name) I met him when I came to night shift a couple of nights ago. He was alone under a lamp trying to warm up. His mom had been transported to the hospital after arriving to Mercy (baby already out) by ambulance. Apparently she had him in the CR (comfort room aka bathroom) at home. Jackson was here alone with no banti (helper). So we adopted him for the night and got to be babysitters. I held him in a heat blanket which is way harder than it looks considering it is 90 degrees here. We had to feed him formula because no other women were here. If a another post pardum lady was here she probably would have fed him.

PARADISE beach

Yesterday Christy, Allison and I had a free day to go to the beach! It was absolutely wonderful! We played volleyball, snorkeled, and indulged in some authentic "chicken BBQ" and pineapple fried rice! Yummmmm.

This is a famous dessert called "halo halo" which means mix mix. It was a bit strange but worth a try. It is ground beans and corn, crushed ice and sweetened condensed milk, jack fruit, gelatin squares, ube ice cream and cereal.

Pineapple fried rice, delicious

Chicken BBQ...not BBQ chicken :)

Baby Precious

My first footprints

This is Precious Mae

Precious won the ink war

Work, Work, Work

I literally learn something new every 5 minutes. It is awesome to learn first hand and with people who are willing to teach you anything. Today I did a lot of work in the Prenatal Clinic. Mondays are designated to seeing all new patients. We get there at 7am, do a quick devotional with the staff and work of patients charts and interpreting their lab results. Then we go into the room where all the woman are waiting and do a few worship songs (which is beautiful to listen to in Visayan) Today we had 87 patients! It took us 5 hours to get through all of them. Now I am working in the Birth Room. There is one woman laboring and she is 9cm, the baby is coming! She is 17 years old and the most quite and calm labor I have ever seen.

Me giving my first SHOT. For those of you who know this about me, in high school I used to cry when I received a shot!!

Checking for fundal height and the position of the baby (of course a professional checks after me)

Interpreting lab results is one of my best skills right now

In order to give birth at Mercy you must have you a Hep. test and it must come back non reactive. We also like to monitor their WBC for UTI, and hgb to make sure they are not too low on iron.

PS: THANKS ERIN FOR THE SKIRT

Food

The food here is really good. I have never eaten such fresh food! We go to the market and get fruits and veggies every week. I hardly recognize most of them, but they taste great. We also eat purple rice....I don't know why it's purple but I'm not complaining! It sure does make your food look prettier.

This is my favorite breakfast!

Life in the Green House

Study Area

Kitchen

A Day at the Market

I went to the market with Allison and Heidi yesterday. I took these pictures with my phone. I want to go back and get pictures with my real camera but I hate drawing attention to myself because you get bombarded with people trying to sell you things. There are also some little children beggars... :(

There are no words to describe how this smells in 95 degree heat.

A common snack for Philipinos are dried fish...I don't think this is something that I will be trying

The market is very inexpensive and this is where we get all our fruit and vegetables, we buy our meat at the Supermarket....thankfully

The prized chicken

This is the NICEST looking motercab around, it cost me 14 cents to ride around on this thing.

Dinner Time

Each week 2 out of us 6 girls are assigned cooking dinner. Here is what we had tonight. It looks frightening but it was delicious. It was a version of a lasagna here but the meat was wrapped in cooked cabbage instead of noodles. Then we had purple rice with a peanut sauce on top. We also had pineapple and some weird purple, almost tasteless, fruit that looks like an apple. Overall great. I'm trying to be easy on my tummy still because every girl said they got sick the first week that they were here.

Here come the babes...

Fresh little baby getting her temperature taken

Even though it may look like Jackie is giving birth, she actually is just doing a newborn exam

This is the first baby I saw delivered. Janyl, has the cutest little cheeks and looks just like her momma

Delivery Room!!

The average cost for a birth at Mercy is about 7 US dollars, even still many patients can not pay all this up front. If a mother has hypertension, twins, is breach, or has other complications then she is transported to the local hospital and cannot give birth at Mercy.

This baby was just a couple days old, we were doing a checkup which included weight, temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, skin color and a similar checkup on the momma.

Here is one of the five birthing beds

Busy birth room!

This is the break room where we sit while we are waiting for patients or while they are laboring with their "bana" (boyfriend, husband, or helper)

why...?

My feet are constantly swollen here...........

Also, I would trade 3 meals for a pedicure.

First Day at Mercy

This is where I was working today doing observations and learning how to do prenatal exams with my aunt. It is busy with a lot of patients but I got to see a lot. I am learning how to measure fundal height (how big her tummy is) and find fetal heart rates. Tomorrow I'll be in the delivery room!

crazy streets...

Perfect afternoon snack. FRESH PINEAPPLE!

Davao

I am here in Davao, currently at my aunt and uncles house. Davao is beautiful-jungle like to me.

Here are some pictures from my flight:

This is Korean Airlines first class seat, I was right behind them in coach but these did look tempting

Good bye plane! Glad to be off you

Why is everyone in long pants and have umbrellas- it's 95 and sunny!

I am going to Mercy with my aunt today. Keep ya posted!