It's a girl!

Patricia gave birth a healthy baby girl today. Present in the delivery room was a doctor, two nurses, a nursing instructor, and six nursing students. It was her first delivery and the baby took its first breath a short 30 minutes after Patricia’s first push. It was like watching a miracle before my own eyes.

Although I have never seen a delivery in the United States, I imagine it is a much different experience for women back home. We are pampered with sterile luxury delivery suites, epidurals, family and friends, flowers and balloons, and a thoughtfully prepared and themed nursery embroidered with the initials of our brand new family member. Patricia’s experience was quite different. There was no family present. There were no flowers and balloons. As Leide, the nurse, led Patricia to the delivery room, she said to her, “It is going to hurt and it is going to be really hard. However, you are not the first woman to have a child. You will not be the last woman to have a child. There will be no crying.” During labor, when Patricia reached out for a hand to squeeze, the nurse gently took her hand and returned it to the side of the examination table. It was five pushes, a few whimpers, and a brand new life. I watched the mother’s eyes to see her reaction after it was all over. I watched to see if she would finally look at her child. She never did.

The lesson that I continue to learn through my experiences with different cultures keeps bringing me back to the theme of self-awareness. As a nurse, my role is to advocate for the patient while respecting the cultural beliefs and practices of the simultaneously. In rural Panama, things are done differently. In parts of the United States, things are often excessive. We can learn from each other. We can respect each other. I can reach out a hand for the mother to squeeze if I feel that is what she needs. If it is against their culture, than I have learned another lesson in cultural competency.

Each day that I spend in the community and the clinic surrounded by impoverished families, I can’t help to feel how blessed we really are in the United States. We have running water. We have toilets. We have clean drinking water. We take so many things for granted. The greatest concern for the community in Soloy is that their neighboring community is doing their “number two” in the river upstream and contaminating their water. They suffer and die from illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia because they lack education and resources for prevention and treatment. HIV is also highly prevalent in these communities because the people are unaware that they carry the virus. I don’t feel guilty for the way that I live in the United States. I do, however, feel more responsibility to serve and help others who are not as fortunate as we are.