Sunday afternoon I had my second delivery where I was the only trained midwife in the clinic when the baby was born! Thankfully all went well. Then in the evening a second mom came at around 8:30. I checked her and everything seemed good until an hour later when I checked her again. I could feel a baby's bottom, not a head! I quickly called Amy who is the head nurse here and told her. She came down and double checked for me and confirmed it was a butt! We have delivered breech babies here before and the mom was dilating fast and was only there with a sister and no transportation or husband around to find any. So we decided there wasn't time to get a hold of the husband and arrange for her to be transferred as this process can take 2 to 6 hours or more if the husband is not present. It was an extremely difficult birth; the mom started pushing within an hour from the time we realized we could not get her to a hospital. The baby got stuck and we tried everything to get that baby out but it was taking too long! The danger with a breech is that the cord comes out with the baby's belly and the rest of the cord can get compressed between the pelv
is and the baby's head and cut off the blood and oxygen supply to the baby. That is what happened. By the time we got the baby out, the cord had been pinched for over 5 minutes and the baby didn't have a heartbeat anymore. So we were ready to resuscitate the baby and started chest compressions and mouth to mouth right away. After 2 minutes we still had no heartbeat. Finally we got a heart beat and it was good and strong and stayed! But that baby wouldn't breathe or wake up at all! We continued it all for over an hour but no breathing occurred except what we did for it. Finally we knew we had exceeded the time you should do cpr so we said it was time to stop and realize that we had done our best and the rest was up to God. We gave the baby to the mom so that she could hold her baby. The baby would give occasional gasps for air but it was always more of the reflex someone gives as they die than an actual breath. So the mom held her baby and prayed over her baby, talked to the baby, patted the baby, and gave 2 blows of air in the face hoping it would wake her baby up, but it did not. We were worried about the mom too since she bled a lot and was lying in the shock position due to dropping blood pressure and rising pulse, so Amy took the baby and checked it again. The heart rate had dropped to 30 whereas it should be 120-160. It continued dropping and there was still not one real breath from the baby. Amy checked to see if there would be any reaction to light shined in the baby's eyes, letting us know if there was any brain activity and there was still nothing. She realized that the baby was dead and we were just seeing the effects of the back of the brain shooting off a few random messages that was causing the heart to sometimes beat as well as the gasping reflex. So they wrapped the baby up in a blanket like we do dead babies, covering the face too, and they laid the baby on a bed in another room so the mom didn't have to see. Everyone was tired and shedding tears, we knew we had done all we could but it was so hard! So they all went to bed but I felt like I should stay and wait till the baby quit making any gasping noises figuring it wouldn't be long at all. I cleaned some and held the wrapped up blanket with the baby inside it for a while; that was too hard so laid it down again. Almost an hour later the baby would still gasp every few minutes! Finally I stood near it and begged God to either help that baby's reflexes to stop or wake that baby up from the dead! Then I looked at the blankets and realized that I saw something that looked like a breath moti
on without the gasping noise! So I uncovered the baby's face and looked. The baby looked pretty dead, but not completely, and sure enough if I looked really hard I could see a breath here and there. Eight breaths in a minute (should be 30 -60) and then I listened to the heart and it was at 100! Over the next 2 hours that baby slowly came to life! Once it had a normal respiration and heart rate I had it on oxygen and surrounded the babe with my water bottle and empty pill bottles that I had filled with hot water to warm the baby up! Over 3 hours after we declared the baby dead I handed it to it's mom alive! Then I went to get Amy again and tell her! The baby had opened it's eyes and kicked it's foot, too! They ended up sending the baby to a hospital 2 hours away where they could do tests and see what was going on with it. The hospital told us the next day that the baby was even better, nursing on it's own, but that it seemed it might have some brain damage. We are continuing to pray for this baby that we call Miracle, that God will completely heal the child He woke from the dead! We got to see Miracle today! His actual name is something to do with being born on Monday but we will probably always call him Miracle! His mom brought him to see us; he is still not back to normal and needs a feeding tube in his nose in order to get enough nutrition. He nurses but it is not enough so to avoid nipple confusion and him spending too much energy on feeding they put the feeding tube in for now. He moves all of his body, has reflexes as well, but they are not as strong as a normal baby. He is on medication to prevent seizures since he was having some at the hospital and that is making him sleepy for now. I watched him nurse and we put a new feeding tube in him. We prayed over him more and we really are believing God to resurrect every part of his body and brain! He is doing so well and has gained a fair amount of weight! I am fine with you sharing his story and praying for him too! They want to make a video about it at the base, too! I think it has taken a while to grasp just how real all that happened was! Today, seeing him did that for me!
