from life's first breath...

I have the amazing privilege of not only witnessing but assisting in the bringing of a human into this world. I literally watch 1 (rather large) person become 2. How beautiful, perfect, and divine it is.

I have now caught 5 babies.

To recap the past 3:

#3

Marites-- A sweet, sweet momma. She gave birth to her second boy (and my first). Charle was born at 7:02 on February 21st 2011.

She was amazing, breathing and controlling her pushes. Her bana, on the other hand, had his body in the cubicle holding her hand and his head out in between the curtains. Hilarious.

Anyways, we had a team of missionaries visiting from where

else.... Washington State. It was neat for them to see this birth

and we all got a group shot afterwards.

#4 On Friday, February 25th I experienced the scariest birth so far. Cayrol came in around 10:15am super active. We brought her right back to the beds and I took her vitals as fast as I could. She wanted to push, so she pushed. Head came out fine. As I reached in to grab his shoulders he was stuck. As soon as I realized I couldn't get him, my supervisor spun her to the end of the bed and tried to pull. Poor fellow was stuck head out for 3 minutes. We call this shoulder dystocia when the shoulders get stuck on the pelvic bone. It was slightly strange because this was her 7th baby. However, I think that God sent her into Mercy that day on purpose because all her other births were at home with a hilot (helper). That would not have gone well with this guy. Ate Ermie finally got him and he had obvious signs and symptoms of distress. Without question we decided to transport him to the hospital. THEN her placenta was still strongly attached after 30 minutes so we transported her too. Maria and I carried the mom, baby, husband, and one of their kids to the ambulance and to the hospital. Rather traumatic and I defiantly do not have pictures of this one.

# 5 Today (February 26th) was a busy day at MMC. Around 9:30am we

had 4 labors walk in all in within 15 minutes of each other, all extremely active. My little lady was Hazel, a G4P3 now (4th pregnancy, 3rd child--her last pregnancy was a miscarriage) She was SUPER sweet and her bana was hilarious and cute, always making her laugh and smile. She came in 7cm dilated and by 10:40a SROM (water broke) by 10:41 I was supporting the head and 10:42 baby out! A precious little girl who was named....guess....

QUEEN Evolet