Tibebe Jesula ap vini! (Jesula's baby is coming!)

I am typing this by the light of a kerosene lantern. Luckily my laptop was already charged so I am able to type this now (Thursday night)` and then post it online later when we have power again. Haitian electricity, EDH, has been awful as usual. Our inverter batteries no longer hold a charge for more than an hour. Dorothy is hoping to have the money to purchase new ones soon. They are VERY expensive, but much needed.  The cost of fuel has gone up again, so it is quite expensive to run the generator. Since it is not a necessity at this time of night, we do without.

Jesula, one of our nannies, finally went into labor. Her water broke sometime around 4 AM this morning and she went to OFATMA hospital. She called us mid-morning. The hospital gave her two prescriptions. They did not have the medications at the hospital so someone has to run out to a pharmacy and purchase them. So, we drove to the hospital (got lost along the way and accidentally wandered into Cite Soleil). When we arrived, we gave money to Jesula's sister to go out and purchase the medications. Jesula's blood pressure was high, she was only 2 cm dialated, and the baby was sitting very high. She is very petite and so it just looked like a giant bowling ball under her dress. Jesula is thirty-six years old and this was an unplanned pregnancy. It is her third child, and she and her husband did not want any more children.

I was VERY impressed with Lopital OFATMA. After having been to the maternity hospital from hell aka Chancerelle Maternity Hospital (click her to read about my experience there), OFATMA looked like heaven for a woman in labor. Jesula actually had a BED...her own bed! There were about six to eight beds in the one room, but unlike Chancerelle, they actually had wooden dividers for privacy. There were fans on the ceiling, a bathroom for the women, AND (drum roll) a WATER COOLER!!!!! Chancerelle does not even provide toilet paper or sheets on the bed, let alone water for the women! In the few hours that we spent at the hospital with Jesula, the nurses checked her blood pressure and IV several times. When we were at Chancerelle with Anne, she only had her blood pressure checked a few times in the 30+ hours there. Now, despite all the wonderful things about OFATMA, there is something heartbreaking. Dorothy and I noticed that for several hours Jesula was the only woman in the maternity ward. Every time that I have been to Chancerelle, there were over 20 women in labor waiting in the waiting room because there where no available beds.

The reason OFATMA was so empty was because Dorothy paid for Jesula's stay there. For a little less than $100 USD, Jesula was given the “royal treatment” of a decent hospital with competent staff, beds, and equipment. Isn't is sad that so many women are forced to go to terrible hospital like Chancerelle just because they cannot afford better? To me, it almost seems criminal. Please, understand that by no means is OFATMA anything close to the quality that hospitals are in the US. And yet here, OFATMA seems so amazing to me. The woman at Chancerelle thought that they were lucky because they were in a hospital rather than the streets or at home. Personally from what I saw there, I would rather give birth at home than be treated the way those women were. The worse part of all of that is that the women do not realize that they deserve better. They are so accustomed to being treated like dirt, that they don't even realize they deserve so much more.

Lord, I thank you for the trained medical staff at Lopital OFATMA. I thank you for providing that safe haven for people in need of medical care. I ask that you protect and watch over the women that cannot afford to go somewhere like that. I ask that as these women are in labor pain, and being treated with no compassion or love that you blanket them with your loving presence.

PS...Jesula's sister promised to call when the baby is born and so far we have gotten no news.  Please keep her in your prayers.