Documentation of Birthing Home Life

Shiphrah families




My home for the past five months





Ate Dina is like an Auntie to all of the little kids, they love her

Ate Bhel and her beautiful babies
Taking a nap in the living room

Mariellie


Maybell


Ate Lornie

Roanne taking a nap

Roanne and Rainlyds, the midwives' little girls are really good friends and get along pretty well most of the time

Ate Grace and Mariellie, the midwives also take care of each other's children and help one another all of the time

Jorge, the mission's driver, a good friend and a big tease likes to take pictures of me while I'm eating. On this particular day it was french toast and fresh mangos

During one of my last weeks at the Birthing Home, a short term missions team came and painted one of our birthing rooms and our prenatal room. So that the women wouldn't be bothered by the smell, we did prenatals outside, in the lovely covered back yard area and a nice little separate room we call the family planning room















This asawa (husband) took off work for the whole day just so that he could come to this prenatal check up and hear the baby's heart beat



Freshly painted prenatal room


After prenatals





This was my second to last prenatal day

Feeling for the baby's head

Finding the baby's position

Listening to the heart beat

Measuring fundal height

This was my last thursday potluck with the birthing home and the Gustafsons. It was lovely to spend time with them but also sad to know I would be leaving soon


Ate Helen and a sleeping Maybell

Ate Becky (notice Aubrey climbing the maypole in the background)

Ate Grace, Ryle, and Ate Becky



Bhel and Mariellie

Bernadette, on my lap

Martin, the Birthing Home cat

Napping after lunch

Eating a fish head. I had never tried this kind of fish before, (I liked it but the body more so than the head) the midwives got really excited that I was eating it and rice with my fingers


Ate Becky and I

All of the lovely women and their sweet children who have poured into my life for the past five months!

My Last Few Births

Even though I've been home for about a week now I still have lots of blogs to do! Most of them consist of just pictures, I have no more words (me run out of words?? Hard to believe!) to describe my time in the Philippines. The sorrow I felt in preparing to leave is too great to describe. It's the weirdest feeling knowing you are leaving and trying to take everything in, and then leaving, and feeling so different because you're just not there anymore. Not sure that makes any sense but that's how I've been feeling lately, discombobulated and incomprehensible. I feel like I've been in a twilight zone, nothing seems the same, and yet somehow in five months nothing seems to have changed either. Honestly, it feels as if I never even went to the Philippines, except for the fact that I miss everyone so much! It's a very strange and unhappy thought, having had so many wonderful experiences there and then feeling like none of it ever happened. When I was in the Philippines I felt like a different person, I felt like a brand new creation all over again. Being back, I am unable to see any change in myself which is hard to swallow. I hope that I have really changed (I must have, right?). The next few blogs are updates of my last weeks and mostly in picture form. It only took being a few hours away to start missing births and wishing a midwife would come and wake me up in the middle of the night!

This little one is actually a boy, despite the pink blanket

She had a really gentle birth

He looks like his mom already

This is a mom coming in for her three day check up with her precious little girl. She decided to have her best friend to help her at the birth. They said they were just like sisters. She was the perfect person to be present; she was very loving and attentive. Deborah and I got to do this birth together, which was really wonderful! Deborah tried to have the husband be involved but he was so nervous that the birthing mother told him to leave! It was the right decision to hep her to give birth more easily.


Aileen was one of my continuities, which means that whenever she came to the birthing home I was the one to do her prenatal check up and when she gave birth I would help her (along with a midwife of course).

She had a fairly difficult labor but did really well! It was great to be a part of her journey, She's a very sweet and strong lady.

The whole family-they had a little girl





This is Ate Leni. She was also one of my continuities, it was lovely to get to know her even before her birth! This is her third baby but she was very unsure during her labor. She is very strong and brave and worked very hard!

This mom was very strong and calm during her birth. This is her third baby and she had a beautiful and gentle birth. This picture was taken soon after it.

Coming back for her three day check up with her older son