tales of a MIDwife..

this is Aileen (my "continuity"of care patient. except, she has become a friend over the past 9 mos.) and NOW we're counting down to 40 wks! She's "due" april 10, and i am so nervous (and excited)! This will be the first time I deliver one of my fRIENd'S babys...i do not know what i'll do if something happens and we have to transport. For now, I'm on-call all.the.time. waiting to get a text with ANY change in her state..false labour pains, bleeding, or that crAZy growth on her finger :S WhatEVEr she needs.

todAY we spent the morning doing free pap smears on any women who wanted it at our clinic. It went really well, actually! The girls from Cebu are very experienced with all of this, and have actually hooked up with a university in Australia and are currently starting research for the WHO for statistics of HIV prevalance in the philippines. At present, there have been no such studies conducted, so there are only estimates for numbers like this, if you can believe thAt. They're predicting prevalance will surpass estimations...scary. OUr clinic will start regular testing (on high risk patients) starting this monday. I'm excited to be as knowledgeable as these girls from Cebu...(Hilary was only 22 when she started her clinic on that island..she's now 26) It blows my mind to think about what she has established within the community she lives. Her and her husband, unlike our clinic, are the ONly americans around. That's gotta be pretty intimidating when first starting out.
this is my group: Tiffany, Sarah, Heather and myself as we set up for the clinic this morning. [we were just practicinggg.]