See a baby being born. Check

About a week and a half ago I managed to see something I had been wanted to see for months. An event many other people had seen in Madagascar, yet I had not. It was the high on my list of things I had to do or see in MADA. I am proud to say, I finally saw a woman give birth to a healthy, baby boy.

You may wonder why this was such a big deal to me. As I would eventually like to have children myself, I was natural curious about the whole process. I also wanted to see how the birthing process was different from America. And boy, were there differences. I will get to them in a second. Overall, everyone who had seen a birth in Madagascar had had some sort of emotional response, ranging from “ewwwww” to “interesting” and I wanted to know where I would fall on that scale (I am more of an “interesting” kind of person). Also my site mate had seen several and since she had seen one, I wanted to see one. It was a very juvenile mentality but at least I know that and am being honest about it.

The woman gave birth on a Monday. I remember that clearly, since usually I tutor Monday afternoons and I remember being thankful that my student had cancelled. My site mate Christiane called me and told me come right on over, since the woman was supposed to give birth at 3:30pm (it’s was about 3:05pm). I hurriedly got my things together and went on over. We arrived about 5 minutes before the woman started pushing. The baby was making her stomach look like a cone. It was very odd looking. The woman tried to push for a few minutes but that baby just did not want to come out quite yet. The mom then rested, while we (the nurse, the 5 female relatives that where there, and Christiane and I) all stood around, waiting for the baby to drop into the birth canal. On a side note, the woman did not make any noise when she was trying to push the baby out. She wouldn’t make any noise the whole time. The only way I could tell she was in pain was from the big, silent tears running down her face.

A quick note on the room where this all was happening. It’s a big concrete room, with no heat or air conditioning. The room has one fluorescent light and no machines of any kind. No ultrasound, no heart rate monitor, no nothing. There was a concrete basin with a tap, a table with the baby weighing scale on it, and another table with all the surgical tools needed. The mom giving birth was on a metal table that looked like it belonged in an industrial kitchen or morgue. There are no stirrups, no mattress, no head part that moves to make sitting up easier. It’s just a metal table. They use a bed pan to catch all the blood and other liquids that come out. The recovery room is even drabber. It has three metal beds and a mattress is on one of them. There are some blankets, but I think the family brought some from home. That’s all that’s in the recovery room. It looks like a mental hospital room from 1960s Russia or something equally as dire. Anyway, to continue…

About twenty minutes later, they decided to try again. During the time we waited, the nurse had hooked the mom up to a glucose drip, to keep up her energy. It was still in her arm when she started pushing again. This time, he was ready to come out. It took maybe 3 minutes, if that long, for that baby boy to join the world. He did not come out screaming. He was quiet. He then spent the first five minutes of his life upside down, while the nurse rubbed his torso with alcohol and slapped his butt and back to get the blood flowing. They did not give the mom they baby as soon as they could and the father did not cut the cord. We heard he was in the kitchen but I never saw him. They finally weighed him and started to wrap him up. There was a slight delay when he decided to pee on his brand new cloth diaper, but he was given a new one. Once he was wrapped up, Christiane took him. The mom during all this was shivering on the table. She finally pushed the afterbirth out, which was the grossest part of the whole situation, and then her brother carried her to the recovery room, with Christiane and I following with the baby. When we got into the room, the female relatives were busy tucking blankets around the mom (who was shivering quite violently I thought), so I held the baby for a while. That’s right, I held a ten minute old baby, before the mom or the dad or the relatives. And that was fine. No one cared (if it had been me, I would have been furious, but it’s a different culture). Then I laid the baby next to its mom on the bed and away I went. I had seen my birth.

The mom named the baby Jacob. I am just glad she didn’t have any complications, cause even I could tell her hips were small, so if she had needed anything above a normal birth she would have been up a creek without a paddle. They try and sort out who is at risk and send them to a bigger city ahead of time, but you never know when something’s going to happen. According to a visiting US doctor that Christiane met, C-sections should account for about 10% of all births here in Madagascar, but they only account for about 1%. Obviously that’s not good, since that means that lots of babies are being put at risk and I’m sure some don’t make it who could have, if the moms had had C-sections. It’s very eye-opening to see a woman give birth here, and makes me appreciate American hospitals more. I will be giving birth in a hospital, with all the latest and modern medical technology. I want access to everything I could possibly need, that way, if something happens, it can be dealt with swiftly and safely.

The birth was the highlight of the time I have been back at site. I’m still teaching, though I only have three more weeks of school to go. I am giving my 2nde students an oral exam, starting next week, so that should be interesting. I did go to tana the first weekend in may, for a craft fair organized by some fellow PCV’s. I was there as help, since I don’t have any crafts at my site. I was the people counter. I also spent a lot of money on souvenirs myself, but that’s ok. It’s all stuff I want and stuff I wanted to buy for other people.

Our close of service conference is coming up in less than a month and it’s crazy to believe that it’s happening. I have been here for almost 2 years now. Insanity! I most likely won’t post anything until after the conference, since I will just be teaching until then. Less than 100 days until I am back in America (hopefully).

Book List

Madame Bovary

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Every Last One

The Forgotten Garden

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

On The Road