Heidi's Random Thoughts

Today was a little bit different, and quite a bit of fun. We went up to San Bartolome Jocopilas to the Women and Children's Hospital with the ultrasound machine, and did 30 ultrasounds on pregnant women there! It was kind of a promotion they were having to get more women to come in for prenatal care, and they felt very positive about its effects. We'll see... They are really trying to combat the high perinatal and maternal mortality rates there, and I think they're really on the right track. They're working WITH the local midwives to encourage them to call in by cell phone if they encounter a problem with a delivery, and they'll send the ambulance to pick them both (patient and midwife) up and bring them in. Most patients they end up having to send here to Quiche, though, since they don't have an obstetrician or C-section capabilities there... but at least they're doing what they can! Currently they've only got one to four deliveries coming in per month, but please pray that they will continue to build a good reputation among the people there and that they will continue to come in to where they can (hopefully) keep them a little safer during pregnancy and delivery.

What I really wanted to write tonight, though, is more about my experiences Friday night on call here. It has taken me this long to "detach" far enough from it to write about it, so forgive the late-ness of the news... I have to say that the night I spent here at the hospital in Labor and Delivery last Friday was one of the worst and most disheartening experiences of my life, and definitely a low point of our Guatemalan experience so far! Matt gave you some of the details (just two vaginal deliveries, then the C-section for the already-dead baby-- which hurt me in EVERY SINGLE bone of my body-- and the miscarriage in the alcoholic who died before we even had to decide whether she needed any further intervention for that... that pretty much sums up the night)

More importantly, though, what I learned-- or at least had my eyes opened to-- during the night is that the value of human life here is just NOTHING like what we are used to in the U.S. The reaction on the part of the staff and the obstetrician to the dead baby was more like, "oh... another one, huh?" (There are 10 to 12 a month that come in here, apparently...) The OB looked at doing a C-section as basically the easiest thing to do, with no regard to the fact that mom now has to try to go bury her baby with a big painful cut in her belly OR for the risks to future pregnancies from this C-section. In fact, he kind of sees it as his little contribution to family planning, since they essentially only "allow" three C-sections before they very strongly encourage women to have their tubes tied. (They basically tell them after the first one that they need to sign the papers for the tubal ligation at or before the third one, so they don't run in to many problems with people not consenting...) I'll be the first to support most efforts to provide better birth control down here, with this level of poverty and the number of pregnancies many women go through, but it's really not our place to make that decision FOR them. Those who graduated from LBJ with me will be happy to know that they will not catch me patting myself on the back for that type of contribution to population control anytime in the foreseeable future!

The 22-year old alcoholic who died just really kind of sealed the whole tone of the evening for me-- It was such a matter of fact thing, and people even chuckled about it. In a developing country, people really do learn to deal with death differently because it seems to happen so much more often... But please pray for the hearts of the staff here at the hospital to soften at least enough to go out and talk to a family about whether or not they even realize that the baby is dead before they wisk the wife away to her C-section! Trying to work some here at the hospital, which my heart tells me I should try to do, is going to be very tough... so please pray for Matt and I, too, to have the patience to accept these people less judgmentally and the wisdom and strength to rise above the prevailing attitudes.

Sorry for the "downer" of a blog entry today, but these are the things that continue to weigh heavy on my heart and that I really need you guys to pray for if you will! I'll close by trying to cheer you up with a little "the rest of the story..." moment, and go ahead and divulge that the real kicker for the whole night was that I came home covered in (what I think are) FLEA bites from the hospital scrubs I used!! Guatemala... a country never short on entertainment value!!

Hope you guys enjoyed the video and pics from yesterday... Sorry we don't have any good ones from today to post. For those of you who may not know, we're actually leaving tomorrow for the City, for a Thursday morning flight--for a very quick long weekend in Texas... Our 90-day visas will expire before another good opportunity comes up, and we have some supplies we need to pick up, so it should be a fun quick trip! It doesn't even seem like we've down here long enough yet to be leaving! But anyway, our internet access will--very ironically-- be slightly less constant over the next few days... Plus, our "adventures" in the U.S. are unlikely to be much to "write home about", so to speak! But we'll keep you posted; no worries!

Thanks again for all of the love, support, prayers, and encouragement we receive daily from all of you out there reading our random musings! Love and blessings to you all--