Just when I thought that I would not get anything more out
of the experience, a child was born.
I
went into this trip hoping that I would see something amazing, which is hard to
do considering all of the amazing things that I had seen over the past 3 months.
Only 3 days before leaving Uganda, a friend and I took yet another trip to the maternal clinic.
I had made the nearly 1 mile trek through the streets of Kabale to the
clinic five different times, through terrifying traffic and across sidewalks
littered with people trying to get to where they are going.
Each time, I learned something new at the
clinic.
I learned more about the cases
that the midwives and doctors had to deal with.
Each time at clinic, I was shocked by the conditions that they worked
in, the situations these mothers had to live in and carry their babies to term through.
As we sat that day waiting for patients to come in for evaluations, a pregnant woman rode in on a motorcycle taxi and was assessed by one of the
midwives.
My friend Maddy and I waited
for the evaluations to be finished and when the midwife working that day, Ruth,
came out, she told us that she thought the woman would go into labor at any
moment.
She told the patient to walk
around the facility making sure not to go too far, and to call out when she
felt labor pains.
We called our other
group members to let them know that she was going to deliver sometime that day.
This was when the waiting game began.
The four of us sat outside with the warm sun
beating on our faces, waiting for some type of noise to come.
Maybe it would be the screaming of the
laboring mother, the gasp of the baby between cries, the shuffling of feet as all the staff came
running.
There were only two staff members on that
day, the mother was walking around quietly and not making a peep of noise, and
the baby came out faster than we were all expecting.
This was probably one of the quietest births
I had just barely witnessed.
While I waited outside, Jake walked
in to check on things and then a few moments later came to me saying that he
things that it was happening.
Of course,
to my fault, I ignored his warning signs because it just seemed too quiet in
there for a little life to be starting.
But a minute later we walked into the delivery wing and I could hear the little
whimpering of the baby.
Ruth came in
behind us to help out the midwife who had helped the mother deliver.
In just a minute, the mother had delivered a healthy
baby boy.
He was wide eyed and bundled
up once they had cleaned him off and weighed him.
By this time, I wasn’t upset by the fact
that I had missed the birth,
I was
just happy that everyone was healthy and interactive.
While the midwives delivered the placenta and
helped to clean the mother up, the volunteers had all taken their turns cooing
at the little baby boy.
It was hard to
believe when I stared into his big dark eyes that this was it for him.
Day 1, hour 1 of the rest of his life.
That day started the count.
He would continue to live, breathe, make
decisions, mold and shape the world to his liking.
The most awe-inspiring thing to me was that I
got to look at him in those first moments, the little scrunched up angry face
of a baby who had yet to experience one thing.
He had been held by his mother and delivered into this world, but other
than that, he was a fresh set of eyes that would experience the world for the
first time.
Everything would be new for
him.
His warm little wrinkles would go
on to see the light of day that afternoon.
I will never forget this feeling.
Barely one hour after delivering, the mother had the
strength to get up and walk to her bed where she would begin to rest for the
next day when she had to take her baby home.
She was completely alone in the process, no family or friends there to
care for her.
I could just see, if not
evident by the fact that she WALKED to her bed minutes after the procedure was finished, that she was a strong
woman.
In fact, every mother that I saw
at that clinic over the course of two weeks, seemed to be the strong pillar that their families needed.
They would give anything and
everything for their children and families.
The women in Uganda seemed to be the most hardworking, dedicated, and
serious people in the community.
Whenever
I saw a woman, she had a steely look on her face and was quickly walking
somewhere to get done whatever important thing was put on her plate that
day.
When I step back and think, I have never met a daughter,
sister, mother, or woman who I didn’t think of as strong.
Women have always gone through tough times,
but in each instance, they come out stronger.
Regardless of how much we sacrifice either
from mind, body, or spirit, there is always more that women are willing to give.
This one quality seems to be our one fault,
but also our saving strength that makes women, in my eyes, the best thing to
happen to the world.
Even without being
a mother, somehow motherhood has changed me.
- Nicole
Comments
Post a Comment