Special Delivery

Today I went to a rural clinic to work with one of the social workers at that site. When I arrived I found her sitting outside of the vacant maternity ward as she waited for the recently mopped floor in her office to dry. She was taking advantage of the quite space to catch up on some paper work prior to meeting with the seemingly endless stream of clients that always fills her day. The desk she was using faced the wall and is where the clinic nurse would normally be sitting if someone was in the ward.

Lined up next to the desk were five tired iron chairs (the waiting room) that had seen better days. The chair cushions have long since vanished, exposing the nakedness of the bare springs that have over time sprung out in every direction. I gingerly dropped down into the least offending one to wait while she finished up her reports. There I had a clear view of the delivery room. As you can see in the picture here – only the bare minimum is provided. A thick mattress and a sheet on a cold metal bed in a non-descript room. What a stark contrast from the newly renovated family birthing rooms full of luxuries that the hospitals in America all seem to be promoting these days

At lunch the nurse told me there were usually two or three babies born at the clinic every day. As we snacked on chips (fries), all of the women shared their stories about how painful giving birth had been for each of them as they struggled to find any words to describe it. By the time we walked back to the clinic, there was a young woman in labor. We stopped in briefly to see how she was progressing.

She was on the bed behind the door curled up in a fetal position, trying to withstand the pain of her contractions. This was her second time to give birth but in that position she seemed even younger than her twenty-one years. She still had several centimeters to go, so everyone went back to their post –leaving her to endure the pain alone. I wanted to stay with her but pushed out the door and told it was unnecessary.

The nurse would check on her throughout the afternoon and come by our office at the other end of the hall to give us an update afterwards. The staff was excited that a Mzungu would be able to see the birth of this child and said that if it was a girl the mother would probably name it after me. We got an update that the mother had two centimeters to go shortly before the last driver arrived to return take me back to town. I knew if I stayed, I would not make it back to Eldoret by dark (a rule of living here) so I missed the delivery. I guess I will have to wait until my return to the clinic next week to find out if this little one who will share my birthday is ‘Diana’ or or not.