Koronadal Wedding Prep 2

Wednesday: 
I spent all day at the church, helping with preparations, and finishing the slideshow for the wedding.
One way to get the church fixed up is to have a wedding there...and this one sure got it!!! Looked completely different after the guys were finished with it..

Tatay building decor stands

Uncle and JR sawing wood for the decor stands

Like the makeshift scaffolding?? Me too....

Lots of dishes to wash...

Thursday:
We butchered the Wedding Reception baboy this morning at the cousin's house, and then the meat was transported to the church where it was processed, while the rest of us cleaned out the intestines, etc. to eat for lunch.

Preparing the pig for slaughter (it's legs were tied to a stick and carried onto the platform)

The pig is smiling--it is happy to be dead. :p

Scraping the hair off after scalding it with boiling water.

Disection--yes..we eat all of it. 

Dissection/slaughtering team

Packaging the meat to be transferred to the church for further processing

Stripping the intestines of their membranes

Cousin, Jojo, cousin, me, cousin, JR, Bordz and Uncle

Cleaning out the intestines

BBQing the organs, to be cut and eaten

Cooking the boiled intestine to make Dinugoan--our lunch

Kaon na--Cousin, Cousin, Jojo, me, JR, cousin, Bordz, Estoy

After Kaon, we went to the church to help process the meat, and worked hard continuing preparations for the wedding.

As a reward, Jim Harris treated all of us out to icecream at Jolibee... We had a blast playing a game (similar to Down by the Banks of the Hanky-Panky)....

Playing the Filipino version of Hanky-Panky with Sylvette's family and cousins

Elimination--down to JR, a cousin, Estoy, Toto, me and Bordz 

Finals came down to JR and I..and unlike kids usually do it in the US, they do a thumb war...much more fair and accurate...however, with a hand over a third larger than mine he easily won. :)

Jollibee and Me

It was a great day and an even better night..So much less stressful than normal American Weddings. We finished the evening off by picking up the wedding coordinators--2 of the Filipina midwives at Mercy, and then later watching Finding Nemo at a cousin's home and having Midnight Merienda.

Koronadal Wedding Prep 1

So, originally, Sylvette and I were going to go to Koronadal City aka Marbel--her hometown to do wedding prep on Saturday, however her dad and 2 brothers opted to come and pick us up at Mercy on Thursday night in Tatay's work jeep, and drive us the 4 hours down to Marbel with all her stuff, which was a relief...because wedding decor sure takes up a lot of room, and a hassle it would have been to try to get it all loaded and unloaded from the bus!

The days following held a lot of fun and adventures...
Friday: (8 days until the big day)

Jim, Sylvette and I went to the city hall and picked up their completed marriage contract, as well as ran other errands.

One of Sylvette's brothers got her a laptop..a group affair.

One of her brothers-Estoy had a large abrasion caused by a motorcycle accident 2 days prior, that was getting infected, so for the next week, I was his 'nurse'-cleaning it up. It is now healing very well.

Saturday (only 1 week left!):

We went to Tatay's sister's work--she and her husband, where they help run a government run/funded Gold Mine/tumbler. That was really fascinating!!!

The hour drive was a blast...got to see lots of country!!

The tumbling unit--the rods inside do the tumbling.

Mass tumbling procedures.

Another unit at work (with the sludge pits in between).

Silver and Gold oz

Tatay, Joy (cousin), Estoy, me, Aunt, and JR

Our view coming back into Koronadal City--absolutely spectacular!!

Sunday:

We went to church, and afterwards went to some cousin's home (bulay) for dinner. That was a lot of fun, and we had some great conversations. Then, when we got home, we just relaxed and prepped wedding plans.

Monday:

Ezra (or affectionately known as Kaboy) got home from training today, (he is becoming a Marine Engineer as well), and so for the first time in 3 years, everyone in the family is together in one place, as JR (the oldest son) has been working as a Marine Engineer for the last 2 years.

Toto (Jim) spray painting branches silver for decorations 

Sylvette chopping up chicken for dinner

Relaxing as a full family before dinner.
Kaboy, Estoy, JR, and Jim

Filipino dinners are the best...always will be. What a celebration!!
Tatay, Bordz, Yen-Yen, Nanay

Nanay and Tatay tried on their wedding apparel..what a precious couple!!

 Tuesday:
After breakfast, Bordz, Kaboy, JR, Sylvette and I took the motorcycles to a cousin's home where we got buko for making buko salad (my favorite!!) This is also the place that we would butcher the pig (baboy) for the wedding.

Their pump for watering the animals.

Kaboy and Bordz opening the Buko (coconut)

2 relatives making boards of equal thickness. 

Kaboy, Sylvette, and Bordz enjoying life. ;)

Then, we went to find tuxes for the boys...

The gwapos-JR, Kaboy and Estoy

The guys wash their laundry over here....with a smile on their face too!! :)

After dinner, we all went to the hair salon, where Sylvette got a trial makeup and hair-do run for the wedding. Also, the boys and I got hair cuts/trims.

So gwapa...what a cute couple

Model family....Estoy, Bordz, Sylvette, JR, and Ezra.

24th/25th Catch (in 4 hours!)

Originally, I hoped I would be able to deliver another 10 babies while I was, but as I was delivering them so fast and together, I realized it was very possible I might get up to 25. And thus, that last 2 weeks, I prayed.

Mark Antony

This Night Shift, I had just gotten off a very busy day after the night shift the night before, and had a ton of stuff to do. Realizing I needed to catch a baby this shift to get to 25, I asked God if He could give me the birth soon, so I would have energy and not be tired, and then I could work on the whole pile of stuff I had brought to work on...

3 week Check

Well, God always knows best, and He granted my first wish whole-heartedly and abundantly, but in doing so deemed it unnecessary to grant the last part, knowing it was not for the best. Praise Him!!

Just prior to endorsements at 10pm, a labor came in, and after being deemed fully, she was endorsed to me. She was 24, and it was her first baby. However, this girl needed coaching...without contractions, heart tones were a normal 130, but during contractions they would range anywhere down to an alarming 80 bpm!

3 Week Check

We tried many different things-breathing, O2, D5LR, head stim, side-lying, etc. However, we could feel a large fetal caput quickly forming. The baby BOY! (Mark Antony) came easily though, and was out at 10:43pm with both nuchal hand and body wrap, and some Mec Staining. We gave him Vit. K immediately to counteract the caput. His APGAR scores were 8 and 8, 5lbs 1oz, and 52cm long. She only had a 1st degree tear, however there were bleeders involved so suturing was necessary.

It was so sweet..her bana had to go work (nights), and so he left his 14 year old daughter to be bantay, and she was so good and sweet!! I kind of adopted her for the night she took care of the baby while her mom was being sutured.

We had a busy night, and so when another labor came in at 11:15pm, I had a feeling she would end up mine..however Nancy did almost all of my labor watching for me until the end, with me just going in to check different things for a while. We made a great team.

With only 3 catching midwives on shift, it was a busy night.

Ate´did an IE at midnight, showing she was 5cm. Thus, I had time to finish paperwork and get my 1st handle of the night transferred to postpartum. Take to mind that was a 18 y/o G2P2 (very responsible, I might add). Her labor cracked me up, because at times she was very quiet, and others she was....very noisy. ;) Her sister was her bantay, and between contractions she had this great big smile on her face, and really knew what she was doing. She would spontaneously change positions, do labor stim, and was very good at breathing, so we pretty much let her do her own thing. She really liked H& K on the birth ball (I think that is my favorite position too).

At 2:32am she used the CR, and upon returning, BOW was visible. Wow....5cm to Fully in 2.5 hours... At 2:46am, she had SROM (moderate staining) and at 2:48am, baby GIRL was out with a posterior nuchal hand and continuous multiple gushings of blood. APGAR Scores of 8 and 9, 7lbs 10oz, 56 cm long. EBL was 550cc with only a slight skin split.

The baby was doing so well, we didn't do suctioning, but that came back to bite us, as 2 hours later, as she started having respiratory distress, and neither bulb syringe or the machine suctioning device was helping...so we ended up transporting the baby to SPMC.

Also, we ended up giving the mom a D5LR IV, since her pulse was too high, and wasn't coming down, and she was experiencing some nausea. Normal protocol is to give D5LR if the EBL is over 500cc, but she was doing so well, we didn't...

Anyway, with the transport, I barely made it back to endorsements, and again, had a ton of paperwork left!! Arggh!! Anyway, wonderful shift, learned a ton, and delivered 25 babies!!!
This was such a blessing, because as I had an inkling of a feeling...my last shift was completely dead (baby-wise)..of course there were other things to do.

I love God's sense of humor!!!!

23rd Catch

Well, after a crazy shift with 10 babies in 10 hours and 2 midwives catching 2 babies, each within 4 hours of eachother, I got a break for a week. During that week, I said goodbye to my precious friend Karissa who went back home, caught up on some MUCH needed sleep, and worked on preparations for not only Sylvette's wedding but also for going to Butuan....and family's Christmas back home--talk about time consuming!! ;)

So, during a Day Shift, my labor came in Fully at 10am, washed in the CR, went to the bed and started pushing at 10:05am. All we had time to get was a BP and heart tones. The baby was born in the caul and was almost a borderline shoulder dystocia..his very sticky shoulders took under a minute to be born, however we had to do hyperflexing and had just started to apply superpubic pressure when he the shoulder slipped out from under the pelvic bone and a beautiful baby boy was born at 10:11am.  beautiful baby boy was born at beautiful boy was born at 10:11am with AROM and lots of gushings of blood and fluid. His APGAR Scores were 8, 10 and he weighed 7lbs 15 oz. and was 55.5cm long.

Had to get a picture with my precious Ate´ - Sylvette...even though she was on Swing shift

There was another birth going on at the same time, so my supervisor was in and out of my cubicle. As soon as the baby was born, she left, knowing if I needed something, I'd tell her. Well, she wasn't within yelling range, and when my patient started hemorrhaging (usually I always clarify with my Super just because on all procedures, but this was emergent, and there was not time to try to find her), I took control of the situation, and had Pit. administered, did BA, cherry pop maneuver, CCT, and got the placenta out. She did have a small tear, that we decided to suture.

Unfortunately, the placenta was weak as well, and the entire amnion tore off, and had to be removed with hemostats. Just as I finished, my Super came back, and I went over everything I did, got a pat on the back, and went on with it... Wow!! Might not sound like much, but it was a big deal for me--gave me even more confidence in my midwifery abilities.

It was neat, because even though this was a borderline dystocia birth, I was really in control, more so than any of my other births in the past (since there was another birth going on, and my , even though I have been in control with those too, but just not so much.. So when she started hemorrhaging, it was like clockwork in my mind--give Pit, do BA, CCT and get the placenta out.

Another beautiful birth...Thank you Jesus!!!