El Templo & Highlights of Sotomayor

Wednesday night we got to go to the temple here in Guayaquil. It is beautiful! We ate in the little cafeteria of the temple, which reminded me a lot of the cafeteria at the Madric MTC and so that was really neat. Then the half of our group that are all endowed all got to do a session. The other half of the girls did baptisms and the three boys that are with us helped them with that. I hadn't ever done a session in Spanish before since being in the Madrid MTC and I absolutely loved it. I loved the vosotros, it made me miss Spain so much. Even more, it is just great I think to learn things in another language once in a while because just like reading scriptures in Spanish and English, they say the same thing, but with the change of words sometimes you can see different possible meanings/symbolism. Such a neat experience. It made me just love BYU too, because where else are you going to be able to attend a temple session with all of your classmates and professors? Phenomenal.

Okay now to wrap up my time at Sotomayor with a few of my favorite things I learned/witnessed in no particular order.

First, eavsdropping on the head nurse teaching a newly admitted patient, I learned the three keys to a successful labor and delivery. These include:
1. Ser fuerte (Be strong)
2. No gritar (Don't yell)
3. Respirar (Breathe)
We all got a good kick out of that. None of us had ever heard the rule about not yelling, but I guess it makes sense with them having so many patients so close together. Just funny. They also tell the patients that they shouldn't talk in the immediate postpartum unit because it makes them hurt more. Maybe it does down here I guess. I don't know.

Another good experience I had, was one of the days, one of my professors, came and found me and told me she wanted me to help her understand and talk to one of the patients that was there for a miscarriage. Talking to her, I found out that this was her second baby she had lost. Her first had been a stillbirth at seven months, and this one she had lost at four weeks of pregnancy. Also, her husband had left her for another woman three weeks ago, so she was worried that all of her stress and emotions had killed her baby. Which according to everything I know, I am 99.9% sure that is NOT the case. So I just talked to her and listened. We cried together and laughed together. At one point, she pointed to the rosary from Hogar de Cristo I still have wrapped around my wrist like a braclet and asked, "rezas?" (Do you pray/recite?) And I was like, "Oh, this is a gift. I am a Mormon." The doctor was actually there at the bed then and he was like, "You are Mormon?" "Yeah,"I said. "Two. . ." "Missionaries?" "Yeah. They came to my house and talked to me about Jose Smith." "Yeah, they are from our church." I told him. The patient then was like, "Los santos de los ultimos dias?" "Yeah," I said. It turns out, she is actually a member of the Church, but is now attending a Evangelical church. She asked when she could see me again and I invited her to come to church with us this Sunday. We'll see if she is able to come. It was a really spiritual experience though talking to her.


I also got to work with another woman who had just had a miscarriage. She was super sad. Understandably. I was racking my brain for anything to tell her or that I could offer her. The only thing I really had after my words that I just didn't feel had helped that much, was the tiny CTR or HLJ ring I had bought at the distribution center at the temple the night before. I just gave it to her and told her that I hoped that it would be something to help her remember her baby (in the States we usually give women who have a miscarriage now a memory box and stuff). This wasn't really the same as that, but it was all that I had. We're not allowed to prostelyte so I didn't explain to her what the HLJ meant, but I figure that if she wears it all the time, she will eventually get curious or someone else will point it out to her what it means. There are tons of members down here. At least this is my prayer.

Another thing I did, and I will try to get a picture of it from my professor because I knew she took some was give labor support to this one woman who just seemed like she was about to die. They don't get epidurals here unless they are having a C-section, or even any sort of pain meds during labor or after the birth, so yeah. Imagine the pain. But this girl was just so cute. My friend, Allie, was helping me with her and the girl was just so cute. She kept just crumbling don't into my arms. It was so cute, and I was so glad we got to be there for her. After her baby was born and the doctor was cleaning her up, she grabbed my hand and said, "Thank you. Thank you so much for being here with me." And that's what makes the whole day worth it.

Her hungry baby that won't get to see his mom for 3 more hours

Okay it's getting late, and I am sure you are wondering when this novel of a post is going to end, so I'll wrap it up with just two more short things. One thing was just absolutely comical. So with this woman that I just told you about. Allie and I had helped her through the whole labor process and delivery and Allie had left the delivery room with the baby and I had stayed with the woman. The baby is out. . . check. (Here again, if you don't love L&D stuff, or if it creeps you, don't read on) Here comes the placenta. I see it and the nurse walking by sees it and we both yell to the doctor who was sitting 5 feet away on a stool with one gloved hand and the other hand ungloved and texting on her cell phone. She jumps up, and gets there just in time to grab it, but the clean-up crew (thank you again Yellow Friends) had taken away all of the stuff, so the doctor stood there dangling the placenta by the umbilical cord in her gloved hand while she continued to text with the other hand for a full minute before they brought her something to drop it into. I was so flabbergasted and I wanted to take a picture of the scene so badly because it was just absolutely unbelieveable. Craziness.

The other short story was that on our last day at Sotomayor, and the very last birth that I saw, the baby was born with the cord around its neck and she came out almost black. Seriously. They usually come out a scary purple color, but this baby was black. They clamped the cord and the nurse ran her into the nursery. I followed. They suctioned the baby's mouth but it still wouldn't breathe. I just stood there praying, "Breathe baby. Please let her breathe. Please breathe." One of the nurses bagged the baby while the other nurse just kept rubbing the baby all over trying to stimulate it and checking the heart periodically. This lasted for almost 5 minutes. Probably some of the scariest five minutes of my life. I was so worried. In the end, the baby did begin to breathe on its own and the color even came back pretty quickly too, but oh man, I was dying. I just kept thinking of the baby herself and the poor mom and the family out in the waiting area. I was going to die. I still have yet to have one of my patients die during my shift and I really wouldn't mind keeping it that way.

In the end, I hope that I haven't been offensive or demeaning about this hospital. It really has been a good learning experience. I feel very grateful for the things I have gotten to see and learn here. It is just very different that the L&D experience I had at LDS Hospital and I can't help but find some of the things a little shocking. They must be doing something right though because they do have a fairly low death rate at the hospital, so there you go. Thank you Sotomayor.

PS Thank you Andrea for giving my blog a much needed facelift.