"Doctor, trouble in maternity!"

Of all the things you do not want to hear spoken through the bedroom window in the middle of the night, this has to be at least in the top ten: "Doctor, trouble in maternity!"

This night, the nurse was urgent.  I put on some scrubs (I lay them out, just in case, every night) and crossed the 75 meters that seperate our house from maternity.

As soon as I walked in the door, I wanted to walk back out.

The baby was breach and only the head was stuck.  The little girl had been that way since the nurse had gone over to my house to get me, and then returned to help the mom.

I touched the cold waist and tried to get the baby out.  While I worked, the mom was inconsolable with pain and fear.  I flipped the baby's body on to the mom and the head popped out, leaving me and our nurse with a rag doll baby- no breathing, no heart beat, and cold.

We started our reanimation, and the nurse was quick to help based on our Helping Babies Breathe course.  "No heart beat, doctor," she said, at the one minute mark.

I alternated chest compressions with some continued breathing with a mask as the nurse tried to give her some medicine through an IV.   At 5 minutes I was going to be done, go back home, and try to go back to sleep.

But God had other plans, and we were able to pick up a heart beat- nice and strong.  However, the child still wasn't breathing. We spent the next 30 minutes breathing for the baby, and again I was about to give up.  I wasn't even sure how to pray.  At this point the child did not have a good chance of being neurologically intact.  I was about to be done, go back home, and not go back to sleep, but toss and turn thinking about the child who almost lived.

But God had other plans, and the child took a breath.  The child was getting colder,  our radiant heater no longer works, and I took the child back over to her mother.  As I placed put her on her mom's belly, I continued breathing for the child.  

The mom, quiet now, tentatively held her child.  I still wasn't sure what was going to happen, and then the child took more breaths,  3 in a minute, then 4, then 8, then the child was breathing 30-40 times a minute.  This isn't  the first time this has ever happened in the world, but it is pretty rare.  We kept the child on extra oxygen, and she is still in our hospital.  

These are tough situations.  Life and death is so fragile. 1% of children born alive in the ROC die the first day.  She's made it that far.  3% die by the end of the first month, and I am still not sure if she will make it.  Yet, each day is a victory, and we can only do what we can and pray with Jesus that "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Continue to pray for us, pray that we show God's love as we fight for kids.  Pray for those tough deliveries, for premature kids, for malnourished kids, for kids in comas.  Pray that God would be glorified in what we do and say, and how we do and say things.

Thanks,

Stephen