journal entry #9~special delivery

We're back in Blantyre and spent the day in town shopping. It's quite an experience to shop here--men sell things on the street, and they flock around you trying to get you to buy their stuff. It's mostly wooden carvings which they insist are made of ebony despite the black stains on their hands and the cans of black shoe polish they all have in their back pockets. But the carvings are beautiful. They gather around you yelling, "sister, sister! come to my stand!" After a while Kelly and I had run out of money and we were trying to tell them this. They didn't believe us. Because we didn't buy anything, one man said to Kelly, "You are not my sister. There is no more love."

Later I went with Kurt, Doug, and Davis to donate the remainder of our medical supplies to a free clinic in Blantyre. As we were unloading the supplies, we told some of the staff about who we were and what we had been doing. Suddenly a door swung open and an African lady wearing all white poked her head out. "You're a nurse?!" she asked, pointing at me. "Come in here, you can do this delivery." I went inside and a volunteer put a thin plastic apron over my clothes. I put on a pair of gloves and the volunteer motioned to me that I should put on two pairs. I did.

There was only one patient in the ward, which was a long room with narrow iron beds along both sides of it. Mosquito nets hung over each bed. The floor was cement. The laboring woman was naked on one of the beds, laying quietly. She didn't have an IV or anything. She was fully dilated and just starting to push. The other nurse stood by and I delivered the baby! He was was healthy and adorable--he even had a little baby afro. I held him, and we clamped and cut the cord. I cleaned him off and weighed him. Doug came in a took a few photos of me with the baby as I was cooing to him and singing Happy Birthday to him.

a brand new baby...

happy birthday!

Then I looked at the mother and realized she was bleeding--a LOT. I met the other nurse's eyes and we began to massage the fundus of the uterus, which causes the uterus to contract and helps slow bleeding (that is, if the bleeding is from the uterus). The other nurse started packing cotton inside the woman to try and slow the bleeding. Soon she was lying in a pool of blood. I looked down at my feet in flip-flop sandals; it was a surreal sight. The woman's blood pressure was starting to drop. Still blood poured out. I said to the nurse, "do you want to start an IV?" While she gathered IV supplies I asked, "do you have blood here?" She said no. I asked, "what will you do if she doesn't stop bleeding?" She said, "find a car and take her somewhere else." I didn't think she would make it at the rate she was bleeding. I looked over at the baby--he hadn't even been held by his mother yet. I started praying.

Just then Doug and Kurt called to me from the hallway. They were ready to go and didn't know what was taking me so long. I went out and told them what was happening. We joined hands and prayed in the hallway. Then I went back inside. The bleeding was still profuse--it was pumping out as if from a faucet. I asked the nurse to ask the woman if it was okay if I prayed for her. She said yes, so I laid my hands on her and prayed out loud for God to stop the bleeding and for the mother and child to be able to leave that place together, both healthy and strong. When I opened my eyes and looked--the bleeding had stopped! It was dramatic--a moment before it had been pouring out and now there was not even a trickle.

The nurse said, "I think she will be okay now." I was so amazed at the whole situation. I hadn't even been planning on going to the clinic but had run several blocks to catch Doug and Kurt because I wanted to tell them not to give my stethescope away. I ended up just hopping in the van with them at the last minute. It's wasn't an accident that we were at that clinic at that time--God did a miracle and I'm so humbled and grateful that He let me witness it.