Missionary Midwife: Wait, there's two!

This last week has been a shall we say...interesting/crazy/unique week. We had a baby born almost every day. First off, I wanted to say how honoured I feel to actually have a family here name their little baby girl I delivered after me, and appoint me as the childs Godmother, they are a really sweet family who I had been doing most of the moms prenatal care before she gave birth, so we knew eachother well. Now let me tell you about the rest of this crazy week of mine... I think the most amazing part was delivering the twins that were both born breech(butt first)! It is so very rare for a Filipina woman to even become pregnant with twins, and also more rare (for a Filipina) that the babies would both be breech. It was 5:20am when she rang the clinic doorbell, she was a drop in pt who hadn’t had any prenatal care. Upon doing an internal exam I could feel not a baby’s head, but a knee, I also noticed her belly looked bigger than usual, but she was a tiny woman. The other midwives walked through the door only minutes after I txted them that the baby was breech, and once they started talking to the mom in her own language, the mom confessed that she believes that she is carrying twins. Sure enough, I found the other baby’s heartbeat . To tell you the truth, all of us midwives were a little nervous(but none of us dared to show it) Transporting this pt. was out of the question because her cervix was fully dialated, birth was eminent we were just waiting for her to get her “urge” to push, and it would be horrible if one or both of these babies were born in a tricy on the way to the hospital. The midwives and I agreed that midwife Eva who has been wanting to deliver a breech baby for so long would be the one to deliver the first twin, and I would be the one to deliver the 2^nd twin, whom we thought was in a head down position. Once that first twin (girl) was born without any problems, we were all so relieved. Upon doing an IE to confirm what position the second twin was, I thought that I was feeling a head, but I was actually feeling the baby’s little round butt through the tight bag of waters. 45 minutes later, the baby’s body was born all at once, but the cord was around his neck so it took my preceptors guidance and a little maneuvering to get his head born; he needed a couple breaths with the ambu bag to get him to start breathing, and he was smaller than his twin sister, but all in all, they were both healthy. They were named James and Jasmine; us midwives helped the family come up with the names. They were so very cute!! But, before these delivery of twins, we had another drop in pt who’s labor was so fast, and she hemorrhaged(which unfortunately is a common complication here due to the mothers being very malnourished and anemic) so I had to start an IV on her...and another pt. who’s baby had aspirated meconium at birth and had respitory distress syndrome ...ugh!! All these rare things we had happen in one week only. We ended the week with a little celebration that all of us midwives, moms and babies had made it through, we ate pizza and had some soda pop...unfortunately now all of us are taking turns one by one being sick with the fluL This is the 2^nd time since being in the Philippines I have gotten sick, and it really does suck...but I know I will make it through

P.S. Happy 4th of July!! I miss the celebration, no fireworks going off here:-(