La segunda semana/The second week Part I

I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy! I was waiting to update the blog once I had completed my first two, 24 hour shifts at the birth center. I just finished my second one this morning and am now halfway through the first session of the clinical intensives. I am really enjoying my time at Maternidad. I am extremely happy about all of the hands-on work I am able to do conducting prenatal citas (appointments), assisting at births, shadowing other students/midwives, and getting to know all of the amazing women and families who work and receive care at Maternidad. I am having a hard time with my living situation and am feeling very lonely when I am not at the birth center, however, and this is, unfortunately, affecting my experience, mood, and motivation. I will talk about my shifts, these personal struggles, research updates, and various realizations throughout the rest of the blog. I have included some pictures of a surrounding thunderstorm from a few nights ago (the sky was such amazing shades of pink), my box that I take to all 24-hour shifts (it holds all of my food; all students decorate their own), the rose room of the birth center (which can be divided in half if necessary), and of the casita. I am bringing my camera to most shifts to try and get pictures inside, but the quantity of pictures I can take is really dependent on the number of people in the center and how busy we are. Thank you for all of your continued support - I will be updating the blog again next week with details from my next 24 hour shifts, a class, interview progress, and a response to some questions APPLES (the service-learning program I have worked with all throughout college that has provided me with a portion of my scholarship) has asked regarding our experience.

Tuesday, June 8

I entered my first shift on Tuesday with a mix of nervousness, anticipation, and excitement. While I felt the 12 hour shift had given me a taste of what to expect, I was still nervous about being more on my own, speaking Spanish constantly, and giving off a bad impression of MLL's students to clients. I had gotten to know some of the students working on my shift the week prior during orientation and was excited to share more time with them. Little did I know what kind of day we had in store! The birth center was extremely crowded and constantly busy. I first shadowed a prenatal cita and then did two before eating lunch and going to Birth Talks from 1-4pm (I will explain what that is in a little bit). My Spanish felt a bit garbled trying to accustom myself to new vocabulary words and in conveying information to the clients, but I really enjoyed having the personal time together. And taking blood pressure wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, although I did get a little distracted when someone yelled "car birth" and kept thinking I heard those words throughout the night! All of the staff midwives must check students' citas and we were so busy that the women were having to wait a long time. I had also not gotten into the habit of providing recommendations if something in a woman's cita was awry (protein in the urine, which can lead to a UTI infection; swelling; back pain) and had to revisit the client before the midwife would check my cita. I thought about how patient and resilient the clients are, waiting at la frontera (border) and at MLL to be seen and checked by students and licensed midwives.

I was happy when we made it to the afternoon (I had only been able to eat bits of food and was pretty hungry) and it was time for all of the students to gather together for Birth Talks for three hours. Birth Talks is a class at MLL in which all of the students (from different quarters and levels of study/experience) gather to discuss working in the clinic and recent births. There is a blank white sheet of paper in the staff area/kitchen on which students can write suggestions, comments, or concerns to be shared and addressed at Birth Talks. One of the students reads through all of these, allowing time for others to provide constructive criticism. We began this Birth Talks by dancing to Macy Gray and then getting down to business. The environment was extremely relaxed and open. Everyone had their shoes off, some people were eating, some were sewing. It became especially relaxed when we were taken through a visualization and relaxation exercise by one of the students. We ended with discussions of two recent difficult births from which we could all learn about clinical and emotional techniques to best support clients. I made an announcement at the end about my interview intentions and everyone seemed very interested - one of the students next to me told me she would do one and I have had positive responses from many of the students who are willing to participate.

The latter portion of the day and evening didn't let up. As I was conducting my third cita, I was called to observe a birth and about two hours later after doing my last one for the day (women come all the way up until 8pm for citas), I was called in to document (important for legal purposes) yet another birth. With two rooms occupied and the car birth woman who had left just a few hours before, there was A LOT of laundry to do. I spent a lot of time with another student learning how to do laundry at MLL. They wash everything twice, spray the blood with hydrogen peroxide, put hydrogen peroxide into the first load, and then bleach into the second. With all of the laundry, list (making sure everything is restocked in the entire center), mopping, and dish washing, I wasn't able to go to sleep until 3:30am and I was awakened again at 4:30am to help bleach a room a woman had just left. This is when I really noticed how tired I felt and as I cleaned the room with another student (we had done all the laundry together), she told me that midwifery wasn't a glamorous profession, but that she liked helping women. She put it so simply, but her words truly conveyed the passion and devotion the women who work in this field possess for women and their reproductive health.

After taking out and folding yet another load of laundry, I was able to go back to sleep at 5:30am and woke up at 7am just in time to tidy up the birth center before the next shift came in. My birthing documentation wasn't over yet, though. A woman who had come in for a labor check the night before came in at 7:30am with extremely strong contractions and had her baby by 7:51am. I recorded all that I could bleary-eyed and joined circle (time when everyone holds hands at the beginning of the day and the midwife provides an update on the night before) before gathering up all of my things and heading back to the casita.