Bob's Blog Log

2007-06-06T02:05:00.000+12:00

2007-06-06T02:00:00.000+12:00

2007-06-02T08:43:00.000+12:00

2007-06-02T08:40:00.000+12:00

NARM test over!!!!

2007-03-13T12:13:00.000+11:00

I took my NARM test on February 21st. I should hear my results back with in 2-6 weeks. I will post when I know how I did!

Fire Exit

2006-12-02T14:24:00.000+11:00

NICU

2006-12-02T14:13:00.000+11:00

I am doing a hospital rotation right now. These are some of the babies in the NICU. There are 101 babies currently and 2 doctors. In the last picture is 2 babies being ventilated by one ambubag. Someone has to pump all day long to keep these babies alive. There are some very tiny babies there, under a pound. Their parents leave some of the babies because they can’t pay for the bill. Working in the NICU for the last 2 days has been one of the saddest experiences of my life.

Bath Time

2006-11-10T14:03:00.000+11:00

Clean Up

2006-11-10T13:58:00.000+11:00

I love to clean up after a birth. It means labor is over, baby is born and nursing, everyone is safe and healthy.

Placenta & Me

2006-11-10T13:52:00.000+11:00

I really debated if I should be putting this picture up, due to the bloody factor. I thought you could handle it, plus I think my face is funny in this picture so I wanted to share it.

More Coffee Please

2006-10-31T20:30:00.000+11:00

This coffee will only sustain me for a few minutes then I will need another dose. I have a problem.

Babies Havin' Babies

2006-10-31T20:23:00.000+11:00

This is Rohanne she isnt 2 yet but is already a promising midwife. Her mom is Grace a midwife at the clinic. Rohanne attends births with her mom and breaths with the laboring women, and pushes when they push and she rubs her stomach in between contractions. In this picture she is sitting on the birth stool. Most moms have their babies on this stool and we use newspaper to keep everything clean then throw it away.

LICE!

2006-10-31T20:16:00.000+11:00

Here we all are checking for lice. My friend found a huge lice bug in my hair and it sent paranoia and fear through the house. I did a treatment and everyone look turns picking threw my hair. I now how whip lash from everyone bending my head but am lice free.

Granny Midwife

2006-09-14T16:40:00.000+12:00

This is a midwife in her 90's that just last year delivered her last baby. She was trained and given a birth kit (the metal tin) in the 40's.

Beautiful Pinoy!

2006-09-14T16:38:00.000+12:00

My new favorite baby

2006-09-14T16:32:00.000+12:00

This is Dos, he is in an earlier picture of me holding him right after birth. He is now one month old and I love him so much. He has a whole head full of hair and he has gained 2 pounds since birth. I am very attached to him.

Medical Outreach

2006-09-11T19:34:00.000+12:00

One of my favorite midwives at the clinic, Gerlene set us up doing a medical and prenatal outreach in her neighborhood. I am pretending to take the kids blood pressure then telling them they needed more vegetables.

my art project

2006-09-11T18:49:00.000+12:00

I finished my art project for school. I used oil paints.

How I feel

2006-08-18T17:23:00.000+12:00

This sort of represents how I feel since the clinic has been closed. Um waiting and waiting.

Feeding God's Children

2006-08-18T17:16:00.000+12:00

Here some of the girls were helping with a children feeding program through YWAM.

Happy Newborn

2006-08-18T17:07:00.000+12:00

Can you see the baby smiling? I think he liked me. Notice also the sweat on my shirt. It is the rainy season here but I still find it easy to sweat.

Latest Birth

2006-08-18T17:02:00.000+12:00

The clinic is still closed but we are able to help some of our friends out.

Borocay

2006-08-05T17:48:00.000+12:00

Yes, it does seem like I have been on a month long vacation since the clinic has closed. I was able to go on vacation with the Lang Family while they were here visiting Susan's family.

Tagaytay Highlands

2006-07-29T18:41:00.000+12:00

The top picture is Marty, Zeb and me with some of Susan's family while visiting the Tagaytay Highlands.

Puerto Galeria

2006-07-16T01:07:00.000+12:00

Since the clinic temp. closed we decided to go to Puerto Galeria. It is an island about 4 hours from Manila. We had a great, relaxing time and stayed at a nice beach cabin for about 3 dollars a night. In this picture we are walking around the island looking for the Sisters of Charity. We heard they have some medical equipment they didnt know how to use and we wanted to talk with them and find out what they do. We found them and they were napping so we werent able to talk with them, but we will try again the next time. A couple in our school, Shianna and her husband Brad are moving there to start a free maternity clinic with a local Dr. Francis. They is a lot of prostitution near we stayed and there is a lot to do there. I wouldn't mind working there.

This is Stairway (www.stairwayfoundation.org) a home for street kids from Manila. It was right across the street from where we stayed. We were invited to a production of theirs bringing attention to child sexual abuse. They are working on taking their act around and actually making a cartoon of it. It was incredible. We were able to talk with the director and they said they have a lot of lung illnesses so we did a teaching of postural drainage positions and percussion. This they can do for each other to help prevent bronchitis and pneumonia.

Blood Donations

2006-07-16T00:48:00.000+12:00

Cecilla is a midwife at our clinic and her dad has TB and needed a blood transfusion because he was throwing up blood. We went to visit him at the TB hospital and learned more about the complexity of health care here in Manila. To receive blood in any hospital here you need to have donors to replace the blood. So we went to the hospital and they had no blood and couldn’t take ours. We spent 2 days traveling to different places trying to get the right blood for her dad. 7 of us made it to a hospital that had the blood that he needed and only one of us, Shianna, was able to give blood. 2 of the Filipinas were ruled out for being to small, 3 of us were ruled out for having too low blood pressure and 1 was out for having a runny nose. Only one of the 7 was able to give, so we weren’t able to get all the blood needed. The next day they were able to get the last bag of blood for her dad. The needle used on Shianna is huge, probably a 14 gauge, and they take about 500 ml of blood. I don’t know if that is normal but it really seemed like a lot. To us when a woman bleeds 500 ml it is considered hemorrhage. I was trying to comfort her in the picture but I was really just talking about how big the needle was.

Baptism

2006-07-16T00:36:00.000+12:00

My first baptism service here in Manila. In mass men were walking over to us and taking our picture. It is really embarrassing to me, I try really hard to smile and not let it get to me. Afterwards we went to their house and ate tons of food along with all the neighbors, and then we were forced into video karaoke (I sang an ABBA song). Video karaoke is one of the most popular, if not the most popular past times here. Most people take it quiet seriously.

Clean Up

2006-07-02T22:00:00.000+12:00

Mopping up during a rain. The streets flood and water comes in. It is interesting what comes in with the water.

Rainy Streets of Manila

2006-07-02T21:52:00.000+12:00

Almost every afternoon we have heavy rains. All the neighborhood kids come out and play in the streets. Probably not very safe, but they sure have a good time.

Bucket Baby

2006-06-11T18:26:00.000+12:00

This our clinic baby called "Bucket".

Typical Scene

2006-06-11T18:08:00.000+12:00

Relaxing on the beds in the prenatal area while on shift, doing homework and what not.

Fundal Height

2006-06-11T18:05:00.000+12:00

Measuring fundal height looks like.

Chubby Baby

2006-06-11T17:50:00.000+12:00

This is one of the chubbiest babies at the clinic. 4000 grams. Most of the babies are between 2000-3000 grams. It isn't unusual to see small babies as normal here, around 5 pounds. Moms are quiet small. Not only because of genetics but they don’t have money for good foods or try not to eat very much to restrict weight gain so they don’t have much to lose after. The fundal height (measuring from the pubic bone to top of uterus) usually corresponds in centimeters for well-nourished moms. For example a mom at 32 weeks measures 32 cm, at term of 40 measuring around 40 cm. our moms usually measure about 30-34 cm. hence the small babies.
Esther is the top picture and Melinda is below.

Baby No Name

2006-05-29T12:33:00.000+12:00

This baby was born last night and her mom had to be transported to the hospital for complicated sutures. The dad left shortly after her birth. We knew the dad was coming back so we kept the baby, because the baby wouldnt have been allowed in with the mom in the hospital. We waited for a while and then the door bell rang and her dad and two of his friends came back very drunk. He wanted to take the baby with him to the hospital. We told him that we were going to wait for mom or another relative to pick her up. I spent the night with her, feeding her with a syringe. It is late morning now and she is still here at the clinic.

Inside the birthing rooms

2006-05-29T12:30:00.000+12:00

Some pictures of our humble clinic. The top picture is the recovery rooms. The second picture is labor rooms. The third is everyones birth shoes.

Friends

2006-05-29T12:25:00.000+12:00

The top picture is Shianna a midwife student friend. The bottom picture is a Filipina midwife named Gerlene. She is the leader of our birth team, that includes Joanna and me.

Dinner Time

2006-05-21T23:31:00.000+12:00

We eat rice with everymeal, usually accompanied with fish. We eat 6 times a day. I gained about 20 pounds eating with them this week.

Homestay Home

2006-05-21T23:28:00.000+12:00

This is the street that I stayed with my homestay family.

Tricycle

2006-05-21T23:23:00.000+12:00

This is a common mode of transport. A tricycle or a jeepney ( I will show a picture of a jeepney later). Today I rode on the back behind the driver taking a baby to the hospital with the mom and her midwife and my pants were hit by a cab. It is so wild going anywhere here.

Volcano and Shoes

2006-05-21T23:21:00.000+12:00

This my friends is the smallest volcano in the world and under it is the largest shoes in the world.

Pineapples Dont Grow on Trees

2006-05-21T23:16:00.000+12:00

We went to see the pineapples and I was waiting to see them in trees like the coconut. Um, so they grow from the ground. Everything here smelled like a mix of pineapples and burning wood.

Bunch of Fruits

2006-05-21T23:12:00.000+12:00

I am sure you cant tell which one is me. I am on the far right. This is just a small sample of the fruit stands here.

Homestay Family

2006-05-21T23:08:00.000+12:00

This is Bennett, Bernice and Jovan. I stayed in their home here in Manila. I went where they went, ate what they ate and Bennett taught me quiet a bit of Tagalog (ta-gul-ick). I loved staying with them they showed me so much about the Philippines and the Filipino culture.

The Pad

2006-05-13T22:18:00.000+12:00

I can't believe how awesome our place is. It goes up 3 stories and beautiful wood floors cover everywhere but the downstairs has marble. I will try to post some pictures of the inside when it is clean. A group of girls are moving out so it is pretty messy.

Green Mango

2006-05-13T22:14:00.000+12:00

This is inside the center. I am eating a green mango which is really sour. I love the fruit, we have it at every meal.

Maternity Center

2006-05-13T22:08:00.000+12:00

This is our Maternity center for the poor of Manila. They just had their 1000th birth in a year in a half. It is so great to be here, it has been raining since I came on Thursday.

Yard Sale!

2006-05-02T02:34:00.000+12:00

We had a yard sale this weekend to help support my trip that is coming up, thanks to everyone who donated their treasures.

Bangs

2006-05-02T02:31:00.000+12:00

That's right folks, Bri cut me some bangs.

2006-04-26T10:28:00.000+12:00

My sister Beth and brother in law Chip
with Jack and Tate

Christmas 2005

My Brother

2006-04-19T06:46:00.000+12:00

Travis, bearded weirdo

Tasha and Gabriel

2006-04-11T11:17:00.000+12:00

This is Tasha meeting Gabriel.

Jack and Tate

2006-04-11T11:14:00.000+12:00

Here are two of the cutest kids in the world. My little nephews, Jack who is almost 5 and Tate who is 2.

Grandpa Grape and Me

2006-04-06T06:15:00.000+12:00

Here is Grandpa, he is going through chemo right now, he has about 2 more months to go. It makes him very weak and tired, I wish that he didnt have to go through this. I love him so much.

Mom in Isreal

2006-04-06T06:10:00.000+12:00

Mommie Pants just got home from visiting the Holy Land

more pictures of Gabie Baby

2006-03-29T10:30:00.000+12:00

New Nephew

2006-03-29T10:26:00.000+12:00

This is Gabe. He was born on March 23rd to my sister and my brother in law. He weighs 7lbs 12oz. He is very handsome already.

Bri and Grandma

2006-03-23T06:28:00.000+11:00

Bri and my little Gannie

Apprenticing in Colorado

2006-03-02T12:23:00.000+11:00

This is one of my favorite people, Dotti, who is a wonderful, smart and caring homebirth midwife that I apprenticed under in 2004/5.

Bosie, Idaho

2006-03-02T12:16:00.000+11:00

This is me in fall of 2005 attending Mercy in Action Midwifery School.

2006-02-03T15:12:00.000+11:00

Welcome to my blog friends and family.