PTSD

I am home.
My house seems enormous, beautiful and spacious after spending 7 days in a room the size of my bedroom with 9 women, 1 toilet (which nothing besides bodily fluids will flush-all waste papers in the trash basket), 2 cold only showers, cockroaches, mice with long tails-must I go on-
And I have PTSD from what i witnessed in the DR. I am working day and night to contact all World Health Coalitions on this one.
Oh the nightmares, scarred for life, not kidding.
Here is my letter, I know it is long so read it a little at a time, please, if you are strong enough.
I won't be taking it down.
Boy I missed you-Love _S

My name is Stacy; I am a traditional Midwife in North America. I returned from a 1 week trip to Santo Domingo’s Altagracia Hospital de los Partos. My intention of going there was to attend a few births which I could document for the purpose of receiving certification in the US.
I am still in shock from the horror of the behaviors I witnessed in this countries public hospital.
The standard of care for a laboring woman is this:
Laboring women, labor in one room with sixteen beds and sometimes three women to a bed at a time. There are no clean sheets or chux on these beds, they are in their street clothes, body fluids are expelled on the floor or on the bed, all waste products are released in the bed or on the floor by the side while they labor. The women are not given food or water to drink.
When the doctors find the woman is completely dilated (or not as I witnessed), she is walked down the hall to the delivery room. If she refuses to walk she is placed in a wheelchair soaked in blood and fluids of the women who sat in it before her, no cover.
In the delivery room, less than three minutes from full dilation, the woman is then instructed to climb up on the table with a plastic garbage bag on it and put her legs in the stirrups. The intern then sticks her fingers inside the woman’s vagina and yells for her to push. She gets one push. Even though the baby's heart tones are WNL, and the baby's head is either -3, -2, or +1, or +2 station, the interns and doctors reach for a large needle and inject her with lidocaine and proceed to cut an enormous mediolateral "episiotomy" into the ladies bottom. The scissors they use are dull and they cut and cut and cut. I witnessed the doctor opening the scissors to find they had blood on them from another woman. She called for a nurse and none came; she used them anyway to cut this woman (What is the AIDS rate in this country neighboring Haiti?)
After the large incision is made, the doctor again puts her fingers in the vagina and orders her to push, if the baby does not fly out (which is rare), a nurse or another doctor pushes the baby out from the fundus.
One day I witnessed an intern cut a woman on both sides and a third time into the rectum; the head was not even visible and no one took a heart tone. This woman was left with a gaping hole in her pelvic floor which words cannot describe.
After the baby is forced out of the woman's severely compromised vagina, the doctors immediately clamp and cut the umbilical cord depriving the baby of its blood. The baby is whisked away to another room and the doctor immediately pulls on the cord of the still attached placenta until the woman hemorrhages and the placenta is expelled. Three times in one hour I witnessed projectile expression of copious amounts of blood at this pulling. Not only did I witness this type of bleeding as they pulled on the cord of this one woman's uterus, it was then found that she had two large medio-lateral tears on her cervix and a mediolateral episiotomy which was (and averages) nearly three inches in length. Needless to say the woman lost more blood than one could imagine, I could not begin to estimate. After much suturing in in a non sterile environment, the woman was instructed to sit up, get off of the table and walk back to a post partum room (she could not and the wheelchair was used),where she received little to no post partum care or any pain medication.
The private hospitals in the D.R. supposedly are much safer and saner than the public hospitals. I witnessed the same behaviors on all of these women giving birth in 2 separate public hospitals.
Instead of coming home and filling out my paperwork that I had attended births in another country, I am writing to you as a plea to investigate the situation in the public hospitals in the Dominican Republic. I am at a loss as to what I could do alone. If you are unable to do anything perhaps you could advise me on what could be done and who could possibly teach these doctors and interns how to receive a baby safely. The practices in the DR. not only endanger the health of the babies, but the mothers as well. The cross contamination of blood is rampant, the infection rates must be through the roof, the integrity of the mothers vaginal tissue is severely compromised. What happens in the public hospitals of the Dominican Republic as I am witness is not birth but torture. We as an educated global society should not in good conscience turn a blind eye to these women and children of our world.
Thank you for your time and response.
With all my heart, -Stacy Sheer

We're MI

"We're MI!" my favorite line from Monsters Incorporated. I wonder how many kids get it, or adults for that matter. If you've been by here lately, or if you've given up on me completely and you are not here and therefore not reading this and I wonder where you are too. . . .Then, you'd know I have not been here in a long time and I have nothing to say. I think I am not the same person anymore. I have wanted to write, I have been aching to paint, I am practicing my violin very little, but some.
End of the world weather rolling on with earthquakes, fires, volcanic eruptions and twisters. What could I possibly have to say at a time like this? I am stressed out? Sheezus, forget I was about to go on about how busy I am and all of the (just 1 maybe)mistakes I have made lately in the accounting arena and woe is me, but forget all that.
I am blessed, I am lucky, thankful, busy, free, loved. Did I say blessed?


Speaking of MI and blessed and all that, I have registered to go on the Medical Ministries International trip in the Dominican Republic this Summer for a week. I will be delivering babies in a maternity clinic with a group of midwives and doctors. Going to reboot my midwifery skills in a clinical setting; the clinic receives nearly 400 babies per month. Going to be a trip indeed.
I miss you too, almost as much as I miss me, really.

The Real story

Sorry to upset anyone about my last post. I had those pictures of the bear incident, from a few weeks ago, before the Flu, and had to find some mythical way to use them. I thought it was funny, but I have been accused of finding humor in strange places.
The truth. I did get a terrible cold. I had a baby due on the 29th, which is tomorrow, no, wait, now today. The baby was feeling big to me and it was the Momma's first. Long labors come from that scenario and I had to keep one step ahead of myself, my schoolwork, my business, tate's company and it is gardening time. My schoolwork has really cut into my gardening performance. And what if I had to give that baby a breath? With a head full of flu? Worries. . .
I wrote my final paper on Sunday. it was due on Monday. That is a rare event for me.
Early this morning I awoke from a dream my pregnant lady called to say she was having contractions. A few hours later she called to say her labor had begun at one in the morning.
Long, very long story short-
I just arrived home, still smelling a bit birthy. Need to change my clothes and wind down from the high.
A BEAUTIFUL baby girl, Aurora, born this evening at 8:45 pm. Amen.

Absence Excuse

Please excuse Stacy from her absence from Blogger since Friday, September 21. Stacy and her mate were in desperate need of R&R, they went camping . . . at an historic hotel /resort... in the mountains... they ate caviar and Salmon, and scrumptious feasts for every meal. They slept like bears deep in hibernation. They lit the fire in the gas log fireplace in their log cabin, with the flick of a switch. The over-sized bath with jacuzzi tub, the wrap around porch with wooden rocking chairs and benches... overlooking the spring fed lake...the perfect fall weather, the clear blue skies...
Camping just does not get any better than that. It just doesn't.

For those of you wanting to hear some of those stories, from Midwifery school on the border, like the time I pre-paid a man to watch my babies while I was at the clinic three 24 hr. shifts plus per week, who took my money but failed to show up to our apartment in the morning. I saw his sketch years later on America's Most Wanted. He was involved in a mass murder (3 or 4 people) (does that make a mass murder?),at a bowling alley in Las Cruces NM. He didn't have me fooled for a minute.
I am gathering, but once again off to job number 3 for the day before I can go home.
More later.
I miss you all and happy Equinox, hooray!

In and Out

One day you're in, the next you are out.
I am not talking about the in and out of favor of the Hollywood type, but of the desire to attend women in labor. I began studying Midwifery when I was 18 years old and pregnant with my first son. My mentor and favorite midwife of all times, lived down the dirt road from me. I lived in a 12X12ft. cabin with no indoor plumbing. I studied everything I could get my hands on. I talked about births with Meg O and would attend seminars and weekend workshops but I needed to get to births other than my own.
By the time I was 23, I was the proud single welfare -mother of two babies. I had no child support, no job skills and no real family close by. I wanted to move closer to my family, but I did not want them to see how "unsuccessful" I had become.
Giving birth to two beautiful healthy boys was not good enough, you know, I am Jewish, I needed to be something. Someone educated, to be respected, or so I thought.
I applied to one of those grueling midwifery apprenticeships on the Mexican border. Midwifery boot camp.
Six months, no sleep. Six months, 55 births and my 2 year old son forgot who I was. He only recognized me (if I was able to escape the compound for more than an hour)by the reaction of his brother. His older brother, he was four, would shout with unquenchable excitement, "MOM-MOM" whenever I could get across the border to visit.
It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Hardest on my heart; but it was also one of the most spectacular and rewarding. It seems strange but those births, the women the babies, the other apprentices, the border, all amazing.
I still attend the occasional birth. I no longer have the ability to give birth myself. I sometimes assist women with pre-natal instruction and hypnosis for birthing.
I recently decided to become more active in the birthing community and like I say, one day you are in, the next day you are out.
It's a dangerous game in today's society. Persecution, comes from three sides of the fence. Do I trust the women of our current society? The pious and the litigious? And then there are the midwives with their economic competition and their push to be able to be legal, licensed by the board of medicine, accept insurance and medicaid, without paying in to the system. Third side, the Doctors and the CNMs who have to cease attending births and loose all that money because they cannot afford the malpractice insurance; they cannot practice without it by law. But the Midwives can practice now, if they comply and pay the Board of medicine.

I received a call the other day, a woman due to have her first baby in April. Elation.
Fear.
You're in, you're out.MY website has been updated by a pro