Work Day at the Clinic

I think it has been about 2 days since my last post. Things are pretty quiet around here. We are having about 1-2 births a day rather than seven, like last week. This is a relief actually. The clinic was granted some money from a client so there is an additional birth room being added on to the clinic as we speak. I was part of the bucket brigade, hauling dirt with our staff and crew. This is actually kind of interesting...the young man who donated the money for the additional room is a recent client of Robin's. He and his wife recently had a homebirth. The couple has their own line of clothing that caters to celebrities. This guy designs clothes for Madonna apparently and has quite the international reputation...of course I had never heard of him, he is from Israel. Anyway, he donated some money, so ground is being broken!
There are only two mamas in house right now, one 16 and one 20. Of course, I don't have to tell you how sweet they are...I will post pictures soon. Both of them I sutured so I feel especially close to them. When I go through suturing with them I feel a particular intimacy with them. Also, they are so young and impressionable, I want their births to be as gentle as possible. The young girls are incredible birthers. The 20 year old last night went from 3cm to pushing in 3 hours!!! Incredible. A really quick pushing phase resulted in a pretty big tear that took me about an hour to repair, which is unusual because I have gotten really fast at stitching. Around here, the midwives do a pretty functional job at stitching, they are not so concerned with aesthetics. I am! In fact, a note to Bill, my teacher, that I was complimented yesterday on my suturing job...so I have you to thank for that Bill. Bill taught me always to do subcutaneous sutures on the outer closure to reduce scarring, scar tissue and improve appearance. Here, the midwives, do a lot of very tight, puckering cutaneous stitching that binds the tissue and causes clumpy, lumps of scar tissue that has a tendency to become re-injured. I have been trying to teach the other midwives by example and show them how a suture job can have great integrity, but look good too. The way the midwives approach suturing is probably related to the cultural attitudes surrounding genitalia here. Apparently women here never look at their yonis, they are discouraged from touching themselves or inspecting themselves. Many women have no idea what their yoni looks like, before or after birth. So honestly, most women don't care how they are sutured. Most have no curiosity at all about their tears or sutures. But good suturing has so many more benefits than just aesthetics! In fact, I can segway into another clinic story here...
Yesterday I got to "play doctor" at the Acupuncture/Open Clinic. You never know who will walk in and you get to spend the afternoon troubleshooting, counseling, dispensing herbs and vitamin/mineral supplements and assisting the acupuncturist. I got some really great client contacts. One was a vaginal yeast infection. This was a cultural eye-opener. After discussing with my translator some cultural norms I came to realize that there was no way that this 40 year old was ever going to actually clean out the inside of her own yoni with her own fingers...never had, never will. Despite her condition. Endang, my super translator and I worked with her a bit and made some progress. We think she might give it a try!? Very interesting.
So it was a great day to mix it up a bit and do some general medical trouble shooting. We got a sweet little white boy with chronic nose bleeds, a possible breech baby and some infertility issues. More fun stuff! I didn't want to miss yesterdays clinic because it was my last chance to work with Dr. John, an awesome acupuncturist from Australia. I have really been blown away by him and wish he wasn't leaving. All the students scramble to work with him because he is a natural teacher, so positive and gentle and works really well in this chaotic environment. Another highlight of my day was working with Endang, a hopeful acupuncturist and volunteer translator for the clinic. Her husband showed Matt around when he was here looking for woodworking contacts.
Well, lunch break is over...gotta go back to the bucket brigade. Love to all...