Hanging out with the Professor & Temple Time

Today was another one of those favorite days. I chose to go back out into the community again today, but instead of going to the schools and working with the kids, I got to go out to one of the health subcentros again. I went out with one of our professors, Cheryl Corbett. She is one of the professors involved with the study I am helping with so we went out with our main objective being to do some interviews of the women in their own homes. When we got to the subcentro though there were people already waiting for us to check them for their blood pressure and blood glucose. Actually, that is kind of the funny thing, half of the people didn’t even know what we were checking for, they had just heard we were coming from the people at the subcentro or from their friends, or had passed by and noticed all of the people waiting around and just got in line. It cracked me up every time when AFTER I had pricked one of their fingers for their blood glucose level and told them if they were in the normal range or not, they would turn and ask, “Now, what was that for?” “What was that?” Oh man! It almost scared me how much they just trust us, because I don’t think that if I just saw a line where people were getting their fingers poked, I would just hop in without even finding out what they were checking for, let alone WHO they were. So funny. Love it.

After about an hour of pumping through the line, we were able to escape and go out with a guide from the subcentro to find some of the women who had recently given birth. We interviewed three women. It was such a neat experience. I liked it a lot better than even the interviews I had done in the hospital because they were just so much more open and natural in their own homes and also they had more time to have processed the whole birth experience. (For example, one of the questions is, “What is the most difficult/gratifying thing about being a mom?”, and that is just kind of a ridiculous question for a woman who has not even left the hospital yet and has only been able to be with her baby for less than 24 hours or something.) It was really neat.

One of the women in particular touched my heart. She was only like 26 years old, and she already had 5 miscarriages, she had a 4-year old daughter and a new baby girl just 24 days old. As I got into the interview and asked her questions about her pregnancy, she mentioned that her “husband” (aka boyfriend) had not let her leave the house to go to her appointments with the doctor while she was pregnant and wouldn’t give her food either. She said that several of her friends told her to have an abortion (down here that is usually accomplished by drinking some crazy toxic herb thing that kills the developing baby) but she said, “I told them no. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to take care of the baby, but I knew that I am not a killer.” I was so touched and proud that there still exists some sense of sacredness for human life in this world that sometimes seems to be turning upside down.

She also told me that her husband beat her even throughout the entire pregnancy. She said that she just remembers trying to protect her stomach each time he hit her. I could not even imagine. (PS She had left him just on Sunday and is living with her mom right now at night, and staying in her old house sometimes during the day while he is at work, so that is why she probably even dared tell us these things.) She said that she rarely got more to eat than crackers and a soda during her pregnancy. Between the lack of nutrition, maternal stress and physical abuse, by some absolute miracle, the baby had actually come out pretty healthy, a little small, but with no real problems. Anyway, I spent the rest of the interview, just being amazed at this woman’s faith and courage to take her current situation head on.

We met with her in her mother’s house, which was made out of cinderblocks, which is actually the high-quality stuff around these parts, but the inside had more of the feeling of a garage than anything else. I have a video I will try to put up. Needless to say, this woman was living in very humble conditions, and this was the house of her mother, I can’t imagine what her own house looked like. There was one point when her niece opened up the refrigerator to get something and I noticed that it really was completely empty save maybe 4 small items; yet, the moment we had arrived as unannounced guests, she had sent her niece and daughter out with a little money that she got from who knows where to buy some Coke to share with us. It reminded me so much of the people I met on the mission, especially the Central American people in Virginia and the South Americans we worked with in Spain. They are just unbelievable giving. It almost makes me sick how they would give you every single thing they have if you asked them to; and even when you don’t, they still make HUGE sacrifices just to serve you and make you feel special in some way. I could sure learn a lot from them in the charity department.

We also learned come new common cultural practices from her. Apparently here in Ecuador, outtie (sp?) bellybuttons are not super cool, so after the umbilical cord falls off, they melt candle wax and pour a little bit of it into the baby’s umbilicus, cover it with gauze and tape it down for a month in order to prevent it sticking out. I don’t know if it actually works or not, but we have since found that it is pretty common practice down here. Also when we came into her house and she handed her baby over to me, I noticed that the baby had a small square of newspaper stuck to its forehead. I would have normally taken it off thinking that it was just an accident, but since being down here, I have learned that things aren’t always what they appear, so I asked her about it, and apparently, it helps the baby’s hiccups go away. I asked other people about it, and a lot of them swore by it. So my challenge to all of you young moms out there is to try it and let me know if it works.

If you look hard, you can see an edge of the square of newspaper on the baby's head

One last crazy thing about her whole interview is that she told us that during one of the visits her husband had allowed her to have, she had an ultrasound and the doctor told her that she was having twins and that at least one of them was a boy. Well at Sotomayor, which is where she had her baby, they routinely do C-sections for all twins, so she had a C-section. She says that she doesn’t remember anything about the C-section after the put her out, not even seeing the baby until they brought her to her in the postpartum unit, and there they told her that she had only had one baby and that it was a girl. I don’t know if the ultrasound person was just totally crazy. I have heard of them missing twins before in ultrasounds and just thinking that it is the same baby and has moved or whatever while they are doing the study, but haven’t heard a lot the other way. Also for her to be told at least one of them was a boy and then her one baby turns out to be a girl. I don’t know. It just seems weird. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the babies died or had major complications because of the mother’s pregnancy history, but it’s weird that they wouldn’t tell her about that. Also, maybe the hospital decided that there was no way she was going to be able to take care of two babies, due to her lack of any income and marital situation, and gave the baby up for adoption. Or like I said, maybe the ultrasound person was just crazy. I don’t know, but it seemed pretty crazy. She didn’t seem to have any doubts about anything about the situation though which is good (it might go back to that whole complete trust in medical authority issue, I don’t know) and so I wasn’t about to stir up the pot and ask more questions about it.

This video shows some of her living conditions

Another woman we interviewed lived in a bamboo house that was on 8-foot stilts like the one we built last week. The house was impeccably clean and organized. And this was with absolutely no notice that we would be coming to visit her. It was impressive. Even more impressive or shocking maybe, was the fact that her 2 year-old son could climb up and down the 8-foot ladder to the house all on his own. I was even a little scared going back down the tiny, rickety thing, but he just took it like a natural.

After clinical, we got to go to the temple again. I love going to the temple down here. It is beautiful and always such a spiritual lift. Today as I was learning and pondering in the temple, for some reason I started thinking about foreordination and about how we all have certain “missions” that our Heavenly Father has planned for us to accomplish if we keep the commandments and follow His plan. And I realized that in order to be worthy and able to complete the things He has planned for me, there are some major things I need to work on and change in my life right now. This might not sound like it was the most fun or exciting thing of my day, but actually it was super inspiring. I think that is what I love about the way Heavenly Father teaches us—He lets us know what areas we need to work on if we ask Him, but instead of feeling bogged down and worthless after, I always feel inspired and motivated and like I can do anything with His help. I am so grateful to know that we truly are literally children of God and that He loves and cares for us as such.