Saturday

Saturday:

Today was our first day back in the wards. Claire and I are in Obstetrics (babies) and Gynecology (women). Here in Oman, women see their primary care doctor until the third trimester, unless they are high risk. We saw several women in the clinic with Dr. Evelyn Moral at various stages of pregnancy (gestation). We felt uteruses, we found heartbeats with sonograms, we had an absolute ball. Dr. Evelyn is an incredible instructor and physician and she was hilarious to spend tie with. She knows Dr. Parmalee because he worked with her relative… or something… from the Philippines. Anyway, small world moment… We then went to lunch, and to the Delivery ward where we were crammed into a too-small-room filled with WAY too many people. We shuffled from one corner to the next through the most violent birth I’ve ever witnessed. Granted, it was the only vaginal birth I’d ever seen and it was a complicated case, so they needed suction to vacuum the baby out. …Well… let me just say the whole situation made me reconsider my stance of having children. Lol. There is such a thing as knowing too much, and I’ve seen too much, lol. I will not go into any detail here so that other women reading this might never know the details and go into pregnancy and birth blissfully unaware. Anyone who knows me, knows that I will probably have children… but right now, I’m in pain for this woman. Yet, but yet, even though this mother was in so much pain, after that child came out and began crying, the joy was so inexplicable. Her sister came in and saw the baby and she started crying. And the look they shared was so indescribably. To be honest, I teared… the happiness was so palpable. I was so enraptured by the infant, I didn’t really focus too much on the actual gynecological suturing… a sign I should go into peds and not OB? Who knows. All I do know, is that all the awful that happened before the birth was made so worth it by the creature under the heating lamp. So. Cool.

After all of this and a tour of the wards… we went to the computer labs for some much needed time on the internet. So many emails, so many responses, so much work. Then the time that we were supposed to be picked up by a student came and went… and then a half hour and an hour. I called and he had totally forgotten us, lol, so we stayed until he could find another soul to transport the poor Americans back home. I was so exhausted after coming home that I was mildly grumpy and quiet… after a sweet meal of tuna, chips, hummos and tomatoes, plus sweet coffee, plus Twilight, I was buzzed, chipper and giggly. It was a wonderful evening. Trevor and I talked late, then passed out cold.