Weekend

Okay, the people at Blogspot are apparently asleep on the job because after four attempts we still couldn't load any pictures, but we do have some stories.

Saturday was our normal early morning (left the house at 6am) drive and a relatively routine clinic. After clinic, though, a pastor brought his pregnant daughter in telling us that she was having a baby. She had had some contractions earlier, but then they quit. She was only about 37 weeks by her recollection of the due date we had given her during her pregnancy, but she forgot to bring the card we gave her that had all of her visit information on it. One thing was clear, she was not in labor. So we checked the position of the baby (head down, just like you want) and sent her home.

This morning around 5:30am, her dad called again saying that she was having the baby and that they wanted to come over. Apparently, her first baby was born in the hospital and died a month later. The family's perception was that the hospital had done something to cause her baby to die, so they were a little nervous.

This morning was different from yesterday. She was, in fact, in labor. Her water broke shortly after she arrived at the house and she was starting to dilate. Heidi did some checks and then turned the delivery over to Hannah Ficker. Hannah is a PA (physician's assistant) student in Houston and was here for the Zona Reina trip. She headed back to the US later this morning.

In the meantime, Matt and Isaac took Katie and Charlie to San Andres to start clinic there, since we usually have around 100 people waiting for us there.

Hannah did a great job with her first delivery, helping to bring a healthy 7 lb. baby boy into the world. The Guatemalan custom is to wait a little while to name the baby, so he doesn't have a name yet. Heidi was, of course, in the role she really enjoys - teacher and coach.

We DID have a great picture of Hannah, Mom, and Baby, but like we said, Blogspot isn't cooperating, so just try to imagine it.

Also, we had a pic of Charlie (a soon-to-be orthopedic surgeon resident) doing a prenatal ultrasound in San Andres and a pic of Joe, Duane, and Matt helping to set up a volleyball net on "the beach" next to the river in Canilla from yesterday afternoon. We had a good time playing beach volleyball Saturday afternoon. Life's not all clinics and surgeries, you know.

Anyway, here's an attempt at imbedding a video Matt shot of Duane, Leslie, Heidi, Isaac, and Rachel flying out of Zona Reina last week...



and here's one of Duane coming in to get another load...