It was weeks ago now when the drama started to unfold.
Let me first introduce Mu Mu Aye, a sweet friend of ours. She’s shy, and hesitant to ask for help. But she has two little boys, nearly 4 and nearly 2; and thus her hands full. In the wake of new laws and needing papers, it’s been a hard year for their family.
She found out she was pregnant with their third little boy in September of last year. Honestly, everyone was chatting about it: she’s pregnant again? Oh, dear. Can they handle that? What about money? Three little kids? All boys!
We wanted to encourage her to keep the baby, and assure her that we’d help in anyway we could. We bought her a few maternity dresses in the market; provided a few random bags of rice. We kept track of all her appointments and took her each time. In the middle of her pregnancy, they moved about three kilometers away. Difficult to get to, but possible; an area where they are out-of-view of police.
We kept up with her. We met her neighbor there and continued to pick her up for every clinic visit. We helped her kids get caught up on their vaccines when we learned they were behind.
Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when I took her to her usual appointment and picked her up. She said she needed to come back the following week to have the baby. It was scheduled because it needed to be a Cesarean section; the baby was breech.
Honestly, this was the first time I looked at her file. I usually don’t want to be too invasive, and she was telling me when each appointment was and that things were fine. I guess we just have different interpretations of that. Now that I opened her book, I learned the baby had been breech from the beginning.
Either way, she had an appointment, and the clinic seemed to be taking care of it.
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The following week we picked her up and took her to the clinic for delivery. Or so we thought.
She called just a few hours later–much too quick for a C-section!–and said she needed to be picked up. We were pretty confused: Did you already have the baby? The surgery is over? And now you’re…going home? What?
Turns out the clinic doesn’t provide C-sections or referrals anymore, and hadn’t helped her to come up with another plan. Because I don’t want to use this to take a stance {on issues that are highly controversial in this little town and altogether irrelevant to the rest of the world}–I’ll just say that I was disappointed at how it was handled. She was given a pamphlet on a new insurance program offered in town, and told to call them.
And since you and I know a bit about insurance–she did not–we understand that you can’t call an insurance company the day you need emergency surgery and expect to be covered.
I’ll just say that day involved calling my teacher to help translate, because I wasn’t sure how emergent this was nor how to discuss insurance in Burmese. It included a meeting with the insurance company, where we learned that, sure enough!–they don’t cover emergency surgeries when you’re on the way to the ER.
Because the medical system is a bit of a mess for the paperless in our town, I’ll summarize: we had the choice of taking her to the ER and paying for the surgery outright; we could drop her at the ER and have her walk out on the bill, leaving it in her name and with potential future problems (but if I’m honest, probably more problems for our consciences than her life practically). Or we could call a friend.
We called a friend. {I blatantly used my privilege, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It worked.}
She works at a clinic outside of town that has excellent ob-gyn care. They said they’d see her that afternoon and could assess how emergent she was. They also can deliver breech babies naturally quite often, and have a number of midwives on staff. And if they can’t, they can refer to the hospital, and the mother is sent with a representative, translator, and advocate.
They saw her that afternoon–no earlier than 4:30pm, so incredibly kind of them–and admitted her. They watched her for four days, when they decided it wasn’t quite time and she could go home and wait for natural labor. Either way, they’d do their best to encourage natural delivery, with the agreement that she had a sponsor–you and I!–if she needed to be admitted, as they didn’t have the funds. We took her back for two more check ups last week and had another one scheduled for this morning.
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I was supposed to pick up one of her friends at 8:30am, who would be going along to stay with her and help. (The father was staying back with the two older kids.) I left for a run about 6:30am.
I had made it just over a kilometer from home when they called: she was in labor and couldn’t wait to 8:30. We needed to go now.
The challenge was: I was a distance from home, on foot. I needed the car. I also needed the friend, who lives out in a field. And the pregnant mother, who lives 3km from our house down tiny little streets that have to be backed out of. And I needed to get her to the clinic an hour away.
And Burmese people have a tendency to wait to the last minute to tell you they need to go. We’ve had many mothers deliver within the hour of us arriving at the hospital, and that’s a closer hospital! I was scared.
I ran home as fast as I could. (So, not that fast.) I ran through Breakfast Club and explained to Thida that Mu Mu Aye was in labor now and I had to go; I grabbed my bag and hopped in the car. I went to find the friend: I parked on the road and ran through the fields to get to their house and woke them up. They were confused: isn’t it 8:30? Yes, but she’s in labor NOW. Hurry! We drove to Mu Mu Aye’s house and headed out to the clinic, while I prayed the whole way that please, oh please, could she not have this breech baby in our car, as we’re driving further away from a hospital? Please, oh please…this baby we so encouraged her to keep–please let them both be okay.
Probably the most stressful day before 8am I’ve ever had.
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We made it to the clinic in time. She was admitted, and they tried natural. She was transferred to a local hospital and had a Cesarean, delivering a healthy little 2.8-kilogram boy.
Stephen and I have done our share of driving for this little boy. We–all of the House Collective family–spent quite a bit of money already, and we’ll be reimbursing a C-section now. She’s keeping a third baby that she seems a bit unsure about, while we wait on a seemingly endless waiting list to adopt a baby. I thought I might be holding a baby of ours by now, and instead I’ll be holding hers.
I’m struck by the surprises life holds. The surprises of pregnancies, the surprises of breech babies, the surprises of finances. The surprises of friendship, the surprises of who you love and who you give your time and life for. The surprises of what you hold and what you don’t. The surprises of a God who gives and takes away, and you don’t always know which a day might hold.