Midwifery Adventures ~ My first few days in Ohio

Recap of the first few days :) 

I'm sitting here on the dresser, reading with the soft glow of the kerosene lamp light...how peaceful. We are here waiting for a labor to turn into a birth. It's a Swartzentruber birth and this dear woman is in active labor and you would never know it! So here we wait...and now...I write...

I came down here late Sunday afternoon, had a little time to "unpack" and get to know Freida's apprentice, Jena, of whom I have come to quite enjoy having around. Us girls are having a wonderful time together. Monday morning we woke up to someone calling to let us know that they were in labor. What exciting news!

We flew around the house and were in the car in no time. We got a call a few minutes after we left to hurry quick. We were told to wait about 30 minutes to come yet us girls could only stand to wait 10-15! After missing a turn and then finally finding the house, we arrived to see that it wasn't going to be quite as quick as we thought.

It was an old order Amish couple, very nice and friendly. Fannie and E.

Their little 17 month old adorable girl, Rachel, didn't quite make it to grandmas house and so the three of us took shifts playing with her. We had a lot of fun playing with rocks, a dump truck, a shovel and shell sand toy, as well as with her little stuffed lamb. She was so sweet, yet oh did she want her mommy and daddy, we had quite the time distracting her from what was going on in the other room. 

At one point during active labor Fannie looked at me and asked  if I ever wanted to have children after attending births. When I responded that I did she quickly replied that she didn't anymore. I very sweetly let her know that right now wasn't the time to decide that ;) 

A couple hours later at 9:55am we had a beautiful, and she really was, baby girl: Hannah , 6lb 2oz, 18 inches long, 14 1/8 head circumference. I was able to hold her for a bit and found my favorite place in the house, the rocking chair, and there we sat and rocked while her mommy was enjoying her herbal bath.

A few hours and a pear later we left to go do a few prenatals and then to go birding...

The prenatals went great, oh how much I've missed doing midwifery!! It's such an incredible blessing to be a part of bringing life into the world. 

Birding...well...us girls saw a few birds, even identified an Avocet ;) and then...we were done, so we went on a walk, a nice LONG walk. So long that Freida had to come and find us because she was done birding and we were miles away. At least it saved us from having to pass by a scary dog that wasn't too thrilled with us coming by his house. 

Home we went and prepared a wonderful garden meal...lunch at 7:30pm. We sat outside and are our  delicious meal while enjoying the beautiful weather and listening to the beautiful songs of the birds. 

I spoke with another midwife from around here last night and offered to help her if she needed it...

3:26am that help was needed and off to a VBAC birth Jena and I went. This birth I got to pretty much be the midwife and the other midwife was there just in case I needed anything. The stars were simply glorious last night. 8:26am little Laura B. was born to her parents: Mary and A. She was 6lb 4oz, 18.5 inches long. I was blessed to be able to do the delivery for this one. She was VBAC and the cervix was way over to the right, so much so that I had to drag it to the middle and hold it there for awhile so that the baby's head could come down and through it. She also drank a bottle of castor oil the previous evening and oh were her contractions hard! Oh, I got to do the newborn exam too :) They were old order Amish. They had the birth at the other midwives house, she's a lot of fun and nice to work with. 

From there...we went to a couple prenatals, two first time appointments, had quite the time finding the house! And then back home we went for breakfast at 4:00pm. :) Oh were we ever, and are we ever, exhausted!

Us girls went and rested until that was disrupted by the next client coming to the house for a prenatal, she's English so she came to us. We had a few more prenatals planned for the evening yet that changed with a call to come quick bc a Swartzentruber lady was in labor: "hard and close" was the message we received which to us meant...RUN!!! With the real possibility of missing it. We all had our assignments for what we were to do upon arrival and were ready to run when we stopped the car when we saw what we were guessing was the woman in labor, calmly walk from the barn to the house, as if it was any other day. 

A bit more relaxed, we brought everything in and decided to check and see where she was at. To all human observation one would think that she wasn't even in labor, yet to our surprise she was 6cm dilated. Back out to "choring" she went while we got everything set up, after that we cleaned the kitchen, swept the floors, put away the cookies and oh how fun it is to be in their homes where we use hand pumped water and kerosine lamps and stoves to heat the water. We got everything clean and ready and now...we wait. I have my little spot...sitting on top of a chest with a kerosine lamp on one side and my computer, my way to charge my phone, on the other, while reading the midwifery magazine and now...writing this update before I forget anything. 

So here I sit...and here we wait...I'll write as I can...