Maybe my last birth?

Let me ask you...how would you feel about these women staring at your crotch all night? This picture is taken from the mother's perspective one night toward the end of a very long birth that ended in a transport to the hospital where Dr. Widegama performed a successful vacuum assisted delivery. Hooray...no cesarean! The cesarean tends to be the solution for most transports around here. In the states, women have the luxury of maybe receiving an epidural and inducing labor, among other possibilities depending on the circumstances. But here they don't use pain medication so loosely. It is only implemented when a cesarean is in sight. Ibu Ketut is on the far left, Joe is next, then Ibu Robin in the foreground in pink and Kadek on the right. Robin was falling asleep sitting up and the rest of us had been up all night. We usually only call Robin at night for special circumstances, in this case the mama was just stuck at 8cm! We had a tough go of it, and of course, so did the mama. We had run out of ideas and now it was time to make the call. So we transported. The head was so low it was really frustrating to not have her dilate all the way. But in the end the Dr. just pulled the baby's head right past the rest of the cervix. She just couldn't push past it herself, which normally you don't push past an un-dilated cervix at all... weird and interesting. At one point during this birth the mama was on a birth stool and Robin set up camp below her crotch, resting her head on a pillow and falling asleep below the mama. Just staring up, hoping for some sign of change and descent. It was a tough one!


Here it is May 3 and I am awaiting the arrival of Matt who should be here in about an hour. We have 2 mamas in labor, one who has been here almost 24 hours with a very tricky labor, but now we seem to be making some progress and another who is having her second baby. Ati, the first one I mentioned may be my last birth here. My enthusiasm is waining dramatically, I can say I may just be officially burnt out. (Can you tell I really don't want to admit it.) But of course, I have see this last one through. I have been with them all night and we have a really nice connection. What a luxury when the mama speaks English.
I have to tell you all that my departure is bittersweet. This has truly been an incredible experience and I feel as though I have done so much good, learned so much and fine tuned my practice...however, I feel as though it took me 3 weeks just to hit my stride and then, the time quickly vanished. I am now comfortable with the methods of practice, I understand more of the culture, I have an excellent rapport with the other midwives, I am beginning to understand the quirky nature of Robin, the director, but now...I have to say goodbye. I guess I have just made a good case for a longer stay for a trip of this sort. The course I set for myself was not sustainable for a long period of time though. I basically attended every birth I possibly could. The clinic did 74 births in April and I reached 62 births in 5 weeks. About 6 of those were transported to the hospital. Pretty good stats though. I believe I was in attendance for every birth that was transported, so 6 out of 74 were transported.
I think I will sign off for now. Getting a bit busy here...love to all.