Journeys of L: The Birthing Clinic

Today we went to the birthing clinic about an hour away from RSO. The nursing group went yesterday and they got to see one birth and another labor that wasn't progressing very quickly. We thought for sure we would get some action and I was totally ready to deliver my first babe. Nothing quite worked out as we planned... we were ready to go at 8:30 but then our van broke down and we didn't get to leave til about 10:00. We ended up taking the jeep which is a lot smaller than the van so we had 4 of us piled into the middle row and our 4 guys in a tiny compartment in the back. And to add to the comfort the A/C was broken so we had all the windows down and the scents and sounds of India flowed freely into the jeep. Super. We finally got to the clinic where they make everyone take their shoes off and walk bare foot. Through a hospital, in the birthing room, with blood all over the floor. No problem. First, we walked through the "nursery" where there were like 10 brand new babies and their moms. They were all so tiny only 2 kg (about 4 pounds). They were all laying on twin size beds in the wards no cribs or incubators or anything. We talked to some of the moms a little bit but I'm sure they were all wondering what we were doing there, as were we. The doctor took us into this little room and gave us a lecture about something, again I didn't understand a word of it. There was one lady who hadn't delivered yet but she didn't even look like she was in labor so we were trying to think of things to make her do to induce labor but to no avail. There was really nothing else going on so we piled back into the jeep and drove home. We spend the rest of the afternoon just relaxing and playing games. We had clinic duty tonight from 4:00-6:00 so a few of us went and sat in the clinic and 2 kids came in complaining of being sick but nothing too exciting. We played quiz Lisa about medical trivia for like an hour, I had a great time! We had dinner which was actually really good I am obsessed with coconut chutney since we had it Andhra Pradesh and that's what we had tonight. Then we had family time with the kids and tried to make them watch Brother Bear but they thought that was super lame. They wanted to watch a movie in Tamil but Elle and I said no because they need as much english exposure as they can get. Then cool uncle eric let them watch a Tamil movie, and Elle sang to the little ones and I helped a couple boys with math homework and then helped the house mother GandhiMathy paint names on dishes and cups. It was a pretty chill day. Tomorrow I think we are doing dental checks on the kids in the clinic and then we are off to Delhi!