I went to bed last night around a quarter to 10pm, feeling fairly content with my meal of fried rice, and listening to a burned copy of Green Day's "American Idiot" on my Discman. As I recall, I slept pretty well for a few hours, waking up a couple of times to take my headphones off and adjust my sheets. Then, around 2:30AM, I awoke to someone calling my name. It was my counterpart, Rosita, the Community Health Worker at the village health post. Groggily, I mentally scanned through the reasons she would be waking me at this hour, and soon arrived at the most probable cause.
"Delivery?" I asked.
"Yes, Phillip," she replied, and asked me to bring my kerosene lamp for light.
Still half asleep, I clambered out from under my mosquito net and walked across the moonlit play field to the health post. There I found a vat of water warming on the single kerosene stove, extra tubs and linen sheets set out, and the mother lying on the narrow examining bunk, crying out in pain. She was accompanied by her own mother, and, upon receiving her initial labor pains, they had together paddled nearly 2 miles in a dugout canoe to Rosita's house, where they got a ride to the health post in Rosita's motorboat.
I roughly estimated that her contractions were coming about 3-4 minutes apart, and, upon examination, she appeared to be fully dilated (I could even touch the top of the baby's head with my middle finger). She was already in the second stage of labor, and, barring any complications, the baby would probably be delivered very shortly. At the time, however, I recall only being sure that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing. IN any case, our first priority was getting the lantern lit, as the one flashlight Rosita had brought was low on batteries and cast hardly any light. After a frantic scramble for matches, during which Rosita and I bumped our heads painfully in the dark, we finally got the lamp lit, and I took the mother�s blood pressure by its small yellow glow. Overhead, I heard a couple of bats fluttering around the corrugated tin ceiling, and outside the frogs, crickets, and various insects of the jungle continued their loud chorus. Meanwhile, inside, the mother's pains were coming faster and stronger, as evidenced by her growing tendency to flail about, grab onto, and then squeeze tightly anything within reach. At one point, she latched onto my own arm, and through my concern and alarm I remember a small part of me feeling strangely removed, as if in disbelief and denial that I was not still in my bed, sleeping peacefully. Out here, the Amerindians certainly don't have any analgesics or anesthesia for pain relief, so all childbirths are done "naturally." Indeed, to my concern, there aren't even supplies to provide an IV drip in case the mother gets dehydrated.
Shortly after 3AM, the mother's water broke, and then, in unbelievably rapid succession, after a few pushes, I saw the head appear, then emerge. What happened next was a very wet sluicing sound, and before I knew it, the entire baby had "squirted" out onto the bed, trailing its umbilical cord and cradled in Rosita�s gloved hands. After a tense instant, the air was filled with its loud, high-pitched crying. Relived, we noted that the baby certainly had fully functioning lungs, and appeared healthy. After the cord had been cut, I helped Rosita clean the baby, picking up gentle handfuls of warm water and smoothing them over his unbelievably small head. The mother passed the placenta a few minutes later (it looked like some gross alien brain out of a horror movie, with the spinal cord still attached). A couple of hours later, after we finished mopping and cleaning up, the sky began to lighten on a very foggy morning, and I found myself cradling a swaddled, newborn baby boy in my arms. He was delivered at 3:20AM. Weight = 3.3kg, length = 49cm, head circumference = 35cm, chest circumference = 34cm. I suggested he be named Max Power due to his super apple saucity, but I think it fell on deaf ears.
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