Babies!

This week I have been spending my volunteer rotation at the local hospital aka Hospital de Carmen. We don't have very much direction at the hospital so we kind of just linger around different units looking for things that we can do to help and watch. The first day I was there we spent most of the time in the maternity unit. There is no such thing as individual rooms here. All of the women that are in labor or that have just given birth are in the same room. The women that are in labor stay in the same room right up until they are about to give birth. Then the women either walk over or are wheeled over to the delivery room right next door. I was amazed when I saw a women that was fully dilated get up and walk over to the delivery room... no pain medications at all keep in mind. The first birth that we witnessed was pretty traumatic. I will spare the gory details but this woman was pushing for about a good half an hour and the baby was not coming out. They even had doctors pushing on the woman's stomach to try and help. It literally looked like they were doing CPR on this woman. Things started to get kind of scary when multiple doctors started coming into the room and trying to help. Eventually they moved the patient to surgery so that she could have an emergency cesarean. We heard later on that the mother and baby boy were doing ok, they baby was on oxygen but they think he would turn out to be alright. Shortly after that we saw two births. There were two woman laying right next to each other in the delivery room and one baby came right after the other... two more beautiful baby boys. I immediately went over to the baby nurse and asked if there was any way that I could help. She let me change that baby and put him into his first outfit. I must say he was looking quite dapper in that yellow knitted outfit. I have learned that in order to get a good experience you have to ask what you can do to help and really put your self out there. The next day at the hospital (Tuesday) we ventured into the pediatrics unit. Here the nurses were very nice and they gave us a stethoscope to go around and listen to the heart and lung sounds of the patients. I have the most clinical and hands on experience in the group because I am in nursing school so I was able to help out the other volunteers. This unit is also like the maternity unit.... all of the patients are in the same room. This is kind of scary because some of the patients have contagious infections that could easily be spread from patient to patient. I had my eyes on this baby in the corner that had no mother with her. Her name was Cielo, she is 4 months old and has down syndrome. I have a very special place in my heart for special needs children. I asked the nurse if I could hold the baby and she agreed. It was difficult to hold Cielo because she was very squirmy and flaccid. After holding her for a while I was able to feed her. This was a difficult task that another nurse assisted me in doing. I was given a 10ml syringe and I had to slowly push the milk into her mouth. It took a while but after three syringes of milk she was happy and fell asleep. The doctors in the unit let us listen in on their rounds of all the patients in the unit. Most of the patients are hospitalized for special needs or respiratory infections such as pneumonia or bronchitis. It is kind of difficult to understand what the doctors are saying to us because it is all in spanish but we can make it out for the most part. That night we decided to go to an indoor market that we had yet to explore. My friend/roommate/soulmate Heather and I said earlier in the week how awesome it would be to get hair wraps while in Peru. When we went to this new market that is just what we did. They look so amazing and are unlike any hair wrap i have even seen. Such a cool design and pretty colors. Needless to say we were very happy. This night we had two dinners... first at home with out home stay family (noodles) then we saved some room for these s/3 cheeseburgers that we have been eyeing. Three soles for a cheeseburger and fries, that is about $1.25 in the US. They were delicious. I had been craving some good american food. This morning we went to the hospital and half of us went into the maternity ward again. We were able to see another live birth,  this time a GIRL. She was beautiful and the mother did so well. We cut the day short and went to hang out at the market and at home before our long awaited pachamanca lunch. Pachamanca is a peruvian tradition where they cook the meat and veggies underground with stones. The meat that I decided to have is called cuy and it is very popular in Peru... it is Guinea Pig. I had to try it right? It ended up being pretty dang good. There wasnt much meat to it but the flavoring was yummy. Some of the other people that got the cuy still had the organs and head on it. Thankfully mine didnt! whew. The meal came with potatoes (of course), these large green beans that looked like edamame, and tamales that tasted like a very sweet corn bread. I may have eaten about three of tamales and brought extra home. And of course we washed it all down with INCA COLA. We had a 3L bottle which was the biggest one i have yet to see... it was beautiful. Out good friend Suvan is leaving early tomorrow, so tonight we are going to have a little going away party filled with desserts from our favorite local bakery called Archies and maybe some cervesas on the roof. xoxo