Midwifery is 'With Woman'

A mother of four prays for rice.  She doesn't have enough to feed her kids.  She had a baby last month. Her husband is out of work.  There is a job.  It's his, but only if he can come up with 300 pesos up-front for a uniform.

I have never gone unwillingly without food.  I have no idea what it's like to be hungry and wonder where my next meal will come from, much less worry about my children's next meal.  I want to have a baby so badly and often wonder why it is so difficult for us when there are plenty of women out there who have more than they would have chosen.  Our stories and experiences could not be more different.

She is my friend, inasmuch as I've been given the opportunity to come alongside her during her pregnancy, to add to the minimal prenatal care she was receiving - to pray for her during her labor and to help her pay her clinic bill so she can go home the day after she delivered a healthy baby boy.  I checked on them a few days after she delivered to screen for any problems since the private clinic told her to come back after a week... so they could remove the cord clamp.  She and her husband saved one-third of the clinic's normal delivery cost during her pregnancy and that was not easy for them.  By the grace of God her husband had work during that time.

To deliver with a trained midwife at a private clinic or a doctor at the public hospital (and both options can be sketchy) it costs at least 3,000 pesos ($70 USD) if everything goes normally.  When urban poor Filipinos live on less than $2 USD a day, how can they be expected to afford basic maternity care? And when things go wrong?. . . 

I cared for her during her last pregnancy three years ago, back when I was still only dreaming of becoming a mom.  Her labor was long.  Too long for the protocols at the clinic where I worked so she had to be transferred to hospital.  I made sure she and her husband had what they needed to deliver there and she ended up delivering normally without any augmentation.  They were so grateful they gave me a beautiful silver necklace with a bamboo and silver charm in the shape of a slipper.  I didn't want to take it but knew it was their way of doing what they could to pay me back so I received it with joy.

I want to be with woman nearly as much as I want to be with child.  When I care for a woman such as this I find myself in an overly-enthusiastic, nearly-giddy state.  These people must think I'm crazy, I tell myself, but they already do - not because of my over-excitement at getting to do a baby and mom check-up after my first 16 months of motherhood, but because I do not fit their presuppositions about white women.

Being white is synonymous with being rich and while compared to them I am exceptionally rich, it's true that I don't fit the description of a rich mommy in the Philippines because I don't bring my nanny along or even have one and I do drive my own car, a dirty one at that.  In the Philippines, if you can afford a car you can afford a driver, and a driver then keeps your car pristine and clean at all times. Image is highly-valued by Filipinos and I pretty much drive around town in a car that looks like it just drove in from a long road trip...  all the way from America. 

I've been doing a lot of day-dreaming and praying lately.  I LOVE being a mom but I also recently realized that I REALLY miss working as a midwife.  I want to come alongside women in my neighborhood as they walk through pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period.  I want to become their friend, learn about their lives and see where it leads.