in Haiti

Just a quick note to say that Justin and I have made it safe and sound to Jacmel, Haiti. It is about as dirty and chaotic as I thought it would be, but the clinic is pretty great. Of course there is a lot of need and lack (to say the least), so all I'm going to say right now is that if you'd like to donate to a very worthy cause, pretty please donate to Mother Health International. They are trying to make rent for March, and the Haitian staff midwives are having their salaries delayed so they can stay on the land. I'm not sure how we're going to get supplies that we need here either, since there is no way to mail things and there are no more volunteers expected.....so if anyone wants to makes a trip to Haiti and bring supplies, let me know! :)

I'm overwhelmed with stories in the first 2 days of being here, so I'll have to wait on it for now, but I'll report that I washed a bunch of clothes today by hand by dipping buckets into a sistern. The sun is super hot and they dry pretty fast, assuming it doesn't down pour..... Also I learned how to use a fetoscope and caught my first Haitian baby last night, a little boy. Yay! And as a surprise bonus, I had the best hot chocolate I've ever had yesterday.... more later, xoxoo

End of Year Update

Too much going on to write = now too much to write about.

Well, it's my last week in New Mexico for awhile. I have LOVED being here more than I could have fathomed. I thought I was just coming here to be a labor and delivery nurse and to hopefully meet some midwives, but of course that was just the lure I needed to get me here, since I never would have personally conjured up the real reasons I needed to come here. I needed to fall in love with mountains and the sunshine and the New Mexican culture that I didn't know existed. I needed to meet and interact with certain people. I needed to learn to drive a stick shift and to do a lot of hot spring soaking. Etc etc. Yes, I have been enchanted...and nearly entrapped by the "Land of Enchantment." (locals joke that it's the land of entrapment)

Now I am off for another grand adventure. No, not the bike trip...we decided Mexico was too dangerous right now, but the equipment is in storage for another time... Instead my sweetie Justin and I are 1st off to visit family/friends in Denver, Kansas City, Iowa, Chicago, and San Antonio, with a 10 day vipassana meditation sit in the middle of our month-long road trip. Then we are off to the Dominican Republic for a week, and then to Jacmel, Haiti, where we will volunteer until mid May. For Mother Health International, I will be a nurse and will finish up my midwifery training so that I can take my CPM boards when I return. Justin will be handy-man and gardener. And since we are quitting our jobs we are open to whatever the universe delivers us after that :)

As a matter of catch up, I should write that October was full of travel: a trip to Oakland for the acro-yoga festival and a trip to Kansas City for my grandparents' 90th bday party. And then to Iowa for Iowa City's first annual yoga festival, for which I had the honor of being the first aid person.

The only thing I can remember of November is crazy nights at work: one involving having 3 babies in 45 minutes and spending a couple weeks caring for a drug-addicted baby who was abandoned at the hospital, and whom we all fell in love with and wanted to take home (including Justin).

December flew by....and here we are!

My parents came last week to celebrate a little Christmas and to take a car load of stuff back to their house for us. For Christmas Eve I was on call, so we walked down Canyon Rd (where many of the famous galleries are) with roommate Amanda and friend/co-worker Katie Lynn. We drank wine and foamy real eggnog and ate veggie tamales and posole. There were carolers surrounding bonfires and farolitos (paper bags with candles) lining the streets. For Christmas Justin cooked me the meal he made me on our first date (BBQ black eyed peas) and I packed while I was on call again, and then went to work at 1am. Yay!!

Happy New Year all! May you manifest all your hearts desires :)

siblings in Kansas City

halloween acroyoga (i'm dorothy from the wizard of oz)

Mother Health International Clinic Wishlist

As you may have heard, I am quitting my job the end of the year, and going to Haiti to volunteer at a clinic called Mother Health International for an indefinite period of time (at least 3 months). If you are interesting in helping out, the following items are things that the clinic has asked for, and I can bring them with me if you give them to me in person or send them to my parents' home before Jan 4th. Items in bold are of more dire need. ....more to come of a real update from me.

Calender for the new year - 1

Medium gloves - with powder, using powder free in the humidity does not work well

Medium sterile gloves, extra long - 10

Newborn cloth diapers - the old fashion kind - Gerbers makes some inexpensive ones

Rechargeable batteries: D-size, 9-volt

Protein powder for mama’s and midwives

Chux pads - disposible and hospital style, washable reusable

Peri bottles

Large dry erase board with markers

Breast pumps - manual

False Unicorn - 3 bottles

Vibernum - 3 bottles

Uva Ursi capsules

Bars (Granola, fruit, cliff, power bars whatever you like you like to eat when hungry at a birth).

Thermos for tea or coffee - large kitchen size

French press - 1 large

Hibicleanse wipes or any antiseptic wipes/towles

Baby wipes - 1 case

Essential oil of peppermint - 2

Aura Cacia essential oil - Chill Pill

Essential oil burner - 2

Pill bags - 2000

Large black garbage bags

Tincture bottles - empty

Gadels - all neonatal sizes

Baskets - (6in x 12-16 in) that wont break easily

Pepper spray for yourself personally and for clinic - buy oil based spray as water based sprays clogs after first use

Small reference book/flip booklet with pics to show moms during prenatals anything that would help with education

Flipflops - for inside clinic

Incense stand - 2

Autoclave - 1

Centrifuge with tubes - 1

Sterile speculum - 3 steel

Speculum light - 1

Microscope with slides and fixative - 1

Beeswax candles with lead free wicks (long taper) - 100

Yellow Pill - lots

Yunnan Baiyao - lots

Sterile instruments packs - 500

Sarongs

Lanterns - battery powered

Headlamps

Flashlights

Pillow cases - used is fine

Maternity pads

Cifixime or Ceftrixone- gonorrhea meds 30 doses

Tums antacids

Oregon grape seed root

Cranberry capsules

Calcium

Magnesium Citrate

Prenatal vitamins

Vitamins C

Echinacea capsules

Vit D

Iron - many, ferrous gluconate or Floradix

Long protective gowns - with long sleves to protect oneself from bodily fluids

Kangaroo care wraps - stetchy material

Ink cartiridge for HP Officejet 6500 Wireless printer Model # E709n, hp ink cartiridge 920

Projector - for computer hook up

Speaker system

Walkie Talkies

Michel Odent’s books in French for our assistant midwives

French midwifery resources, educational tools, books, etc

Happy Autumn Equinox!

full moon equinox

hands like branches reach for rain

and feet root in dirt

Tonight my roommates and I took off our clothes on our front porch and ran around in the rain under the full moon. Happy equinox! It was the second time in a couple weeks that we've delighted in the joy of water in the high desert--the last time by swimming in the Pecos river. Ahhhhhh it was so. so. nice.

Life has been jam-packed recently. I joke that I "live in the future" because I'm always shocked at the passage of time, not to mention disoriented from working nights. What? It's almost October, 2010? shut up, who time-transported me?

I worked 5 out of the past 6 nights, which were all consumed in craziness. This was after nearly a week away from the hospital because I was taking a course in advanced life support in obstetrics where I learned fun things like repairing buttholes that have ripped during childbirth. This past week I took care of a girl who was on her way to jail for instigating a fight, but had to get checked out first because she'd been kicked in the stomach. A woman who was in jail for 7 months and then out for four months, and claimed she had gotten pregnant before going to jail, making her at least 11 months pregnant (umm impossible + her belly was about 6 months in size...which would mean she got pregnant in jail). We had one set of twins. I caught a baby for a woman who came in and delivered in 4 minutes. One night I assisted in a delivery and then I was the recorder at a code on the med-surge floor, for which the guy did not survive--thus experiencing someone's entrance into this world and another's exit. And last but not least: I got a tire blowout one night on the way to work, and then had a c-section where the mom went into respiratory distress on the OR table, they struggled to get the baby out and had to turn him around inside of her and then use forceps to get him out, and then the dr and I had to resuscitate the babe, as he was almost lifeless at that point. Both ended up doing well though.

There's probably more, but I'd rather not think about it....on the up side, I discovered a new breakfast burrito stop on the way home from work and I've started commuting with another spunky little nurse who works on med-surge and has a wonderful southern accent :)

In other news, I've started blues dancing, which is incredibly sexy and fun and relatively easy. There are no moves or steps per say--it's all just listening to and feeling the music and the other person's movements. And the music is wonderfully diverse--from traditional blues, to hip hop, to show tunes, to pop, etc.

The aspens are turning color here and the mountains are splashed with red and orange--soon the mountains in which Santa Fe is built will look like they're on fire. And speaking of which...Zozobra was a couple weekends ago, which is part of Santa Fe's Fiesta celebration. It involves burning an enormous marionette puppet, filled with the town's people's gloom from the past year. People drop off wedding dresses, legal documents, letters, or simply papers with what they want to free themself from written on on them. And then 50,000 people gather to watch it all go up in flames.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to going to Oakland and Kansas City next month, but am also so excited to spend more time rolling around in the New Mexico dirt before it snows :) and learning things I almost wish I didn't know at the hospital!

xxoxoxoxoxx