Missionary Midwife: Angelo

Just a couple of days ago we had the most emotionally challenging birth I have been to yet...a girl who had just turned 14 walked into the clinic in labor. She was a rape victim, her father was the one who had impregnated her. This little girl was very unhappy and scared when she walked in. She had rejected her baby for the entire pregnancy and was not eating or taking care of herself, therefore she only looked about 6 months pregnant but was actually 9. She was planning on giving the baby away to a neighbor once it was born, we explained to her and the family that if she was to give up the baby, it wouldn’t erase what had happened to her, and it might even add more trauma, because she would always remember the day her little baby was born...ect. Anyways, despite the odds of this being a high risk case we decided the best thing for her would be to let her stay here and give her the most safe, gentle, loving birth experience as possible; so we admitted her. During the labor we had the lights down low and we took turns one at a time supporting this girl along with family members she wanted with her. We were all quietly praying for her and this baby since the moment she walked in. At first during contractions it seemed she was re-living her rape experience, she would just cry. But she was a tough little girl, and started coping very well after awhile. She was only in labor for about 7 hours, and pushed for a half an hour. Once the little(4lb, 3oz) otherwise healthy baby boy was born, we put him skin to skin right on his mama, he cried vigoursly right from the start. I guided the mothers hand to her baby and said, "look at your baby, isn’t he just so cute!" But she just checked out. She fell into a sleeping state, and even though she had minimal blood loss from the delivery, by her vitals it seemed she was going into some sort of shock. We were thinking it was emotional? It never got to the point of being dangerous or anything, we just stayed right with her keeping an eye on her vitals, and keeping the baby skin to skin/nursing. We would gently wake her up every so often making sure she was still responsive, and have her take a drink or something. It wasn’t until after that first hour that she actually came into the present realizing reality. She was eating some soup meanwhile the baby was still nursing, and every once in a while she would look down at him, I think in disbelief that she actually had a real live baby in her arms. Slowly but surely she started bonding with that baby through the night and was interacting with him, and responding to his needs; she fell in love with him. By morning she had decided to keep the baby and raise him with the support of her family. Overnight she had transformed from a hurt scared little girl, into a woman; into a mother. When we were filling out paper work getting ready to discharge her and the baby, we asked what they were going to name him, the family said, “oh, we don’t have a name yet,” but all of a sudden the new mama piped up and said, I will name him Angelo, which means Angel.

I have permission from the family to share these pictures...