Re-adjusting

I have been home now for more than 10 days and I am finally sitting down to write this last (?) post. My last weeks in Haiti were filled with births, deepening personal connections and a bit of a look at the world outside the birth centre. Sitting in my bedroom of my condo, with Leeum visiting, its almost as if I was never in Haiti. Life in Vancouver just takes over again and I find myself wondering how to integrate the experiences of the last month.

A few of my last memories include

Camp Pinchenat
Myself and a couple other midwives finally got a chance to go to Camp Pinchenat, the local camp for displaced people (those left homeless after the earthquake). Unlike the massive camps my friend Maxo works at in Port-au-Prince, this one had only about 5000 people still living in it. The community organizer and local artist, Charlotte, took us under her wing and quickly delivered us to a woman who had had her baby 3 days earlier, under the watchful eye of a local security guard. She and the baby were doing really well, despite living in a small section of an oppressively hot, green army tent. It was her 3rd baby and apparently she had gone to the hospital the day after the birth for a check up, where she was given antibiotics to prevent infection due to her tenuous living situation. The most interesting thing we found was her basket of pills. She had seemingly kept all the pills anyone had ever given her, including some expired antibiotics she had taken in pregnancy and alot of methergine (an anti-hemorrhagic drug used usually only in cases of post partum hemorrhage). We explained the danger in having the methergine around and Charlotte quickly took it all away. Later, walking in the streets of both Jacmel and Port au Prince, I saw plenty of pills for sale on the side of the street and realized I had no idea how common it may be to have pills on hand 'just in case'. The saddest story at the camp was the young woman of about 15 or 16 yrs old who came to us looking for help. She had apparently been the victim of a gang rape a few days before and was disoriented and incoherent. Charlotte translated and explained she had already been in touch with Amnesty International, The Red Cross, the local police, MSF and anyone else she could think of about the situation and she had found the girl a place to stay outside of the camp, but she kept returning to the camp in this state. It was heartbreaking not to be able to offer her anything.

1200g baby
My last day of pediatric clinic, I met the smallest living baby I had ever seen. She was 5 days old and had been born at home at about 7 months gestation with a local midwife. Her young mother brought her in for a check up, appearing to be totally happy with the way things had been going. She weighed 1200g and slept through our whole 1.5 hour appointment. Her mother said she had been feeding, but it was hard to believe since she was so lethargic and small. At 7 months babies have often not developed their suck reflex yet and so can have great difficulty feeding. I taught her kangaroo care, which originated in South Africa and involves wearing preterm babies, skin to skin on the mother (or other relatives chests) around the clock. Preterm babies have a hard time maintaining their own body temperature and kangaroo care mimics being back in the womb as much as possible. Her mama also was given a breast pump and taught how to syringe feed the pumped breastmilk. She took 1.5 ounces during the visit and should hopefully be getting that every 2 hours in order to grow. It was only at the end of the visit, so focused on the baby, that I took the mama's BP - which inevitably was high, likely why she had the baby early in the first place. And unlike in Canada, where we order bloodwork, send women to see OBs and follow them very closely for postpartum complications related to high BPs, I couldn't do anything. All I could do was send her home with some homoepathics and herbs, along with the danger signs of seizures (the ultimate risk with high BP) and hope that her body would just settle out on its own. I didn't see her or the baby again before I left, but the other midwives were committed to following up with her and the baby.

15 seconds
Until this last entry, I don't think I have written much about the impact of the 15 second earthquake on particular friends lives. I met a lot of students who had been studying at the university in Port au Prince when it happened. As you may have heard, whole faculties were lost when some of the buildings collapsed. The students I met described where there were, some in class, some on their way to class, some playing basketball. They describe walking through the city, picking up their classmates and taking them to the hospitals, some so covered in blood they didn't know if they were alive or dead. Body parts just lying around in random places, or being taken by dogs. One got a cellphone call from her mother, as she lay crushed under her building at work, but by the time she got there, her mother had already died. One had been playing basketball and was left, for 3 days, in the same shorts and t-shirt and eventually walked part way back to Jacmel to be with his family. He was just about to graduate, planning to defend his thesis the next day (Jan 13th) and yet the earthquake killed his thesis advisor, his thesis itself and he is just now returning to re-writing it, under the guidance of a new advisor. One of my artist friends took Bonnie and I walking early one morning, and showed us the house he used to live in. It is still standing, no structural damage and in fact housing 2 Canadian agronomist, but he refuses to live in it. Its concrete and he prefers the tent he has on his aunt's property. Most of his art since the earthquake, has focused on the 'catastrophe' (as many people refer to it as), including making art from pieces of rubble and teaching workshops to kids to make art of all that is left. One of the translators took me to her tent, which is on the side of the road across from the house she used to share with her son, her aunt and various other relatives. She had had a larger tent for her and her son, but a few nights earlier, while at a birth with us at the birth centre, her tent had been destroyed by some neighbors due to a conflict someone had with her aunt. She and her son were now living in a tiny 2 person tent. She also introduced me that evening to a couple of the children of the woman I wrote about with the massive post partum hemorrhage. They lived on her street, cared for by various neighbours. When she introduced me to them, they were polite, giving me kisses on the cheek, but also staring blankly at me when she explained who I was and that I had helped their mother have another baby. Finally, on a bit of a more cheerful note, I was invited to visit another of the staff from the birth centres house. She had made delicious breadfruit and chicken balls on a coal burner with her mother for me and all her family was around to meet 'le blanc'. Her younger siblings were so fascinated by me and my skin colour, that the youngest blurted out, after having played with my hair and sat on my lap,'I know! It was Jesus that made you white'. Apparently the next morning she had piles of questions for my friend, where does she live? does she have parents? does she sleep? how does she sleep? where does she sleep?

And so, my last entry, like me, is a little scattered. Thanks again to all of you who supported me to be able to do this work. Your donations, your emails, yours text messages, your responses to the blog all made it possible. I will likely go back to Haiti, I feel it deep in my bones.

Over and out, from Vancouver.