Another breech baby and... A roach in the bedcovers

      Monday was a pretty normal day although it was long. But it was the first day we were open after the holidays so not bad considering. Tuesday had numerous patients carried in on beds. The first one appeared to just have a bad case of acid reflux but she hadn't left yet when the clinic suddenly had twice as many people waiting out front it seemed. Another lady was here on a bed. She was in labor and the baby was breech. It's head and one arm were still inside the mother so she was carried in on the bedclothes from her bed. It appeared she had been pushing for a long time because she was very swollen. The family denied that and said this just happened, she's only been in labor about two hours. Whatever the case, soon the baby was delivered but it wasn't breathing.  The people here seem so accepting of things not turning out as planned. I told them the baby had died but we thought the mom would be okay with some medicines and they were happy. I guess we should be glad too, if they had waited too long to bring them to the clinic the mother could be dead also. Anyway, Githane and I were listening to see if the baby had a heartbeat when out of the covers the mom was lying on... Crawls a roach. Not fast, just seeing what was going on I guess. I didn't want to see him in my room later so grabbed him up in my gloved hand ... And put him in the trash! Okay, think on this for a little. These people hadn't come from very far away, only the Chadek area, but they had to get this lady on her bed out of the house first then carry the whole contraption down whatever winding, narrow trail leads to their house, then however far on the "main" road which is gravel and not smooth at all. It's just a totally different world here.
     On Wednesday evening Dallas and Linda Koehn, with their son, Travis, came to live at our house until Keith's return on the 20th or the 21st. It does make it seem not quite so weird to lock up at night when April and I come out to our rooms and the house doesn't seem so big and empty with more people living here. Plus we have gotten in on some good cooking. It isn't nearly as much fun to cook when it's only for two people anyway.
     On another note, it is VERY dry and dusty here. Unless there is rain soon there will be a lot of hunger and suffering this year. There isn't much water in the cisterns either. At the catholic compound near here they have seven cisterns. They keep two for their own use, one got cracked in the earthquake, and three others are empty because we didn't get enough rain this fall. That leaves them with half of one cistern for a tremendous amount of people. So some days they aren't giving out water already. Last Sunday on the way to church we stopped at a local house to see if their little girl wanted to come to church with us. Lacey has been stopping there often to bring her to church because that family is into devil worship and other not so good things. She couldn't come with us because they hadn't gotten water that morning so she couldn't bath.
    Another interesting experience from this last week, we had another lady come in in labor. It was her first baby and she was scared. The baby was close enough we could see his hair but the mother absolutely... refused...to...push. She would NOT! We started an IV and got some fluids and pitocin going but still nothing. Finally we called one family member in to talk with her, to no avail... We have had some bad experiences here if the cord is around the baby's neck and the mother won't push. But we have no way of knowing, so far the fetal heart rate is good but... To put it plain and simply... Miss Githane gave this lady a spanking. Not on her behind but on her legs. And one little spat didn't do it, she had to continue... Several times. We knew of no other option but to try what we could. Talking and begging was getting us nowhere. The family member couldn't get her to push either. Telling her the baby was suffering got nowhere. We can't do a c-section up here. And the hospital is three hours away. Praise The Lord she did come around finally and the baby was born, and the cord wasn't around his neck either, and it only took a few minutes for him to breathe well. I'm beginning to wonder if the family brought her to the clinic for the birth because they were afraid of something like that happening at home. Who knows. She is good though and her baby boy is too so we are thankful.