Call the Midwife

Every midwife knows about PBS’ hit entertainment show set in London’s East End in the 1950s. It’s the closest thing entertainment has to what we do here.  We don’t do births in homes here. Goodness. We’d flood little houses with sweat dripping from our face for lack of electricity and no fans.  The baby would never know it made the transition earth side.  We’d have no lights and miss births because we got lost ten times on the way to a birth. I’m thankful for this clean little clinic with running water and electricity. I’m thankful our ladies can come here and it’s a familiar place where they feel welcome and comfortable. I’m thankful we get to use fans when our adrenaline is pumping!

When a lady delivers with us she usually stays in our postpartum area anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on their situation; how mom and baby are doing.  After their stay they pack up their small bag of toiletries and baby clothes we’ve given them and load up in the ambulance.  We ask the ladies to show us the route to their houses. Left turns, right turns, continue straights sometimes get mixed up and miscommunication happens, but eventually we make to a place on the road where they say, “konpe la.”  We park the ambulance and climb out. What happens next is a series of humbling, sad, eye opening events in which I feel like I’m living a surreal Haiti version of Call the Midwife.  We follow the once pregnant mother through winding alleys and rocky paths.  “Houses” made of tin, left over earthquake tent pieces, and sticks and/or concrete which line the three feet wide paths.  I take mental notes to try to remember how to get back out of this maze.  I think about our ladies walking this path as they come every Thursday to prenatal class, their swollen bodies making the trek to our clean maternity center. As we follow the new mother to her house we are greeted by neighbors, mocked by some, welcomed by others.  Finally we arrive at the house.  Their house is always humbling to me.  Sad glances are usually subtly passed between midwives as we swallow hard trying to grasp, once again, the reality our ladies live in. 

Shortly after entering one of the houses, where an instant heat wave of 15 degrees hotter meets us, a young barefoot girl bends low to get through the small door of the house. When she stands up I can see the fullness of her frame. The buttons on her dress are pulling from her swollen belly bulging beneath the material and my heart sinks.  Knowing in the next month she’ll give birth, likely in a small hut with a dirt floor, and no train professional in attendance gives me overwhelming sadness.  What will her story be?  I can’t resist. I reach out and touch her swollen belly and breathe a prayer of protection. 

We climb back into the ambulance with heavy hearts. This is a favorite activity; taking ladies home.  It’s also a space in time where the reality of our world sets in just a little deeper. And I am thankful there’s such a thing as heaven.  Thankful that Heaven can come to earth now and that one day all things will be made new.