First deliveries!!!... (observered and assisted)

This is the pastoral center where we live with other students and familes. It's like a hostel. Below is me in the hospital. We were met by a group of muslim girls who let us pray for them and then read the Bible with us. The man in the background is a janitor in the hospital who really wanted to be in the picture as well. The third photo is the view from Gondola Fort... built in the 1400's I think and is a popular tourist attraction in Hyderabad. We went there and had a worship service at the highest point, a place where many Muslims and Hindu's come to worship. We also shared the gospel via 4 Christian men who joined and translated for us randomly. A security guard and 2 others accepted Jesus! The final photo is Ravi! He is from my DTS 4 years ago and is now a pastor of 2 churches and father of 2 boys here in Hyderabad... Dannie and Winnie... We were honoured at his church on Sunday. Each of us recieved garlands and a very awesome meal. I'm happy!

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Wow!!!

Monday I had my first experience in the labour room and I LOVED IT!
I will try to explain the scene to you...
8 metal beds with bugs crawling over them, often with 8 women labouring on their backs, with IVs in their arms... they are not allowed water.
1 doctor, 1 medical student, 2 nurses maybe, and dimas(who are the ladies who clean up the blood and whatever else... the doctors don't do this).
The women are treated roughly and often yelled at if they are screaming.
Once they give birth the baby is taken to the babies room immediately in a metal tray (we joke calling it the silver plater) and weighed and cleaned a bit. They are sometimes left uncovered for hours on dirty blankets while they mothers are ushered out into the hall to wait for often a few hours.
The mothers are almost always given episiotomies and the baby may or may not be pushed out of her. Suturing may or may not be given with Lidocane to numb them.... CRAZY FIRST EXPERIENCE... but I was amazed to see us remain calm and peaceful.
The doctors and nurses are not mean or horrible people. This is just how they have been working for a long time because of limited resources and limited staff. The hospital is free and often poor women will come here. Blankets are not supplied for the babies so the women will rip their sari's to make a blanket... they don't often bring anything for cultural reasons. I heard also because the child may die and they don't want to get their hopes up... not sure about the legitimacy of that but it makes sense.

Our role is to make the mother feel comfortable- keeping an eye on her and never leaving her side. We also push the rules as much as we can :) We are all students and each day learn new things. The women we grateful and confused that we stayed by their sides and seemed to care. I was able to (so sorry if you don't have a stomach for any of this... comment and I can censure some of the details) cut a cord, clean a baby, massage a few backs, clean up a few bottoms, and re-insert IV lines. It was awesome to be able to learn and pray and discover how we can best help them.

Tuesday we went to the postnatal ward and found the mothers and their babies. They were all smiles, realizing that we had searched them out. It was so cool to be able to hold the babies that we had helped deliver!

I'm happy guys! This is exactly where I want to be and I'm soooooooo grateful to all of you who are helping and have helped and are praying and just being my friends.

Thank you so much!

Love Stefanie