My First Birth!

I have finally witnessed my first birth here in the Philippines! It was beautiful! Such a lovely birth! There was a shoulder dystocia, but only for two minutes. And so it was a birth with slight complications that turned out well! The family and mother were so calm even when things were difficult. This was their fifth child and she seemed overly calm during the two minutes of us pulling and prodding trying to get the babies stuck shoulder out of the birth canal, taking comfort in her previous experiences. Since this was my first time witnessing as a student, I was the official observer! I also took vital signs (bp-blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory, temperature, etc.) of both mother and baby, and I documented the birth and the statistics on all vital signs etc.! The mother thought it was lucky a lucky birth, because she was 35, and it was the midwife's 35th birthday, and the assistant midwife is 35, and the main midwife who is 37 weeks pregnant is 35. The baby's placenta (or life support; giver of life) was born at 2:35, and the baby weighed 3.5 kilos! I believe the birth was full of Lavished Upon Christ's Kindness! It was beautiful!

Before all this occurred all the midwives and I had devotionals in the back yard. We talked about some verses and prayed over each other butbut style (or Asian style, or whatever you want to call it. They called it butbut, which is one of the tribes near here), which means that everyone prayed at the same time. It is so wonderful to be with these women, that put God above everything else and make it a point to have Him be the center of all they do!