Haiti - conclusion

Living off a diet of rice, and not much more…using a latrine that I gagged every time I used, sleeping underneath a mosquito net, and arising to what was before me was almost overwhelming.  The stench of death permeated even where we were staying…it enveloped us whenever we drove down the streets of bodies that were still trapped underneath rubble and probably would forever stay without a marker stating who they were…people lost…never to be remembered…

In the midst of that there was life!!!  In my hands I was holding a baby I had delivered by myself…on the floor of an abandoned hospital on a cardboard box…in the middle of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Life WOULD persevere!!! Life will NOT be denied!!!  I looked at this baby who had been pushed from her mother’s womb, and I was holding in my hands with nothing but a pair of clamps, bandage scissors, and two alcohol swabs.  There she was, yelling here defiance to the world to hear that SHE had arrived!!!  

I still yelled out to anyone who would hear that “We’re having a baby here!!!” but no one would be coming…they were still in the front of the hospital giving “report” to the oncoming shift.  So I clamped the babies umbilical cord, wiped off the bandage scissors with the alcohol swab I had, clamped (with my fingers) the moms side of the umbilical cord, and cut that baby’s cord of life. 

In one hand I was stimulating the baby to breath…to live…to ensure her place in this new world, and in the other hand I was clamping the mothers umbilical cord, and ensuring that the placenta would pass without problem.  I looked at the mom, and our eyes connected…this had just happened…life had entered the world…and we had connected at the most intimate level. And I felt as small as a flea…to be humbled and to be a part of this amazing miracle in the middle of earthquake torn Haiti, I felt surreal…God had met me and brought me through this…

I delivered the placenta while stimulating the baby with one hand, and ensuring the mother’s side of the umbilical cord was clamped…and then a doctor arrived…”Can I help?!” he said – and I handed him this baby, the sweet little girl who had made her arrival into this world, and I stayed with the mom.  In the midst of all the chaos I ensured that the placenta had been delivered intact, I massaged her belly to make sure that the uterus was clamping down…and I took a moment…

God was here…in the midst of death…in the midst of chaos…in the midst of death and destruction – here was life!!! We had never been abandoned, we were met where we needed to be.  We were met in our deepest fear and anxiety.  He gave me the knowledge I needed to make sure mama and baby were fine.  I was just a pinky in His great big hand…but wow did I ever feel like He had met me where I was…and we were triumphant!

God is good…in the  deepest of despair, and in the highest of highs…He gave me what  I needed, the knowledge, the strength, the intuition, the compassion, the right thing to do, in the midst of it all…He was there…He always is there…

And so I sat beside this mom.  We looked at each other with the shared knowledge of what it meant to be a mom.  We smiled, and although we did not speak the same language, the universal language of love was shared between us.

Something I will never forget…