A Midwifery Story

Want to hear a story about this little baby bootie?⠀

When I lived and worked in the Philippines I was in my second year of study there and I walked into the birth center in the middle of a busy clinic day. The entry way was always lined with pregnant women waiting for their appointments. As I walked I recognized one woman sitting there and her eyes lit up when she saw me coming. I realized that I had been her Midwife the year before, probably only 10 months prior and looking at her I realized that she would be due anytime now with another baby. She reached out for my hand and started trying to tell me something. Her English wasn’t great and my Visayan wasn’t great so I took her over to one of the Philippina staff members and asked her to translate for me. I was told that because she has come to the clinic so late in her pregnancy, at term, that she wasn’t allowed to deliver there. She had no prenatal history and the rules were the rules. I said I would take responsibility for her and I took her inside the clinic, began her chart and wrote my name on it indicating that I would be the only midwife to take care of her. The details are blurry to me now but I know she delivered a week or two later. She came back to the clinic sometime within the next week postpartum for a checkup. After her checkup I walked her to the door and later when I was cleaning up my area I noticed that she had left her baby’s bootie there. I thought I would just give it to her at her next scheduled appointment so I put it in my bag but she never showed up and I never saw her again. ⠀

I have kept this bootie in my Midwifery bag every day since that day and occasionally I will see it when I’m digging through trying to find something and I’ll remember her. I remember that sometimes we need to take responsibility for others and not expect anything in return. I remember that we need to look out for those who need to be advocated for and I remember that some rules are stupid and should be broken for the sake of sense and compassion.⠀

I hope her and her babies are happy and healthy and that somehow she can understand that I still think of her sometimes 💞