Black and white stories

I have wonderful news! From what I’ve gathered, actual midwives watch the show “Call the Midwife”. How crazy is that? I started watching it when I’d been telling people about this part of my gap year and they kept asking if I’d seen it. I find it funny that a BBC show set in a poor district of London in the 1950’s shares so may topics with my conversations over dinner these days.

I suppose it’s about time I elaborate on what it is exactly that I do as the “general volunteer” at Holy Family Birth Center. Here is a list of tasks I’ve done for work :

• picked up a custom framed sketch of a woman’s reproductive system during pregnancy
• moved furniture (we’re renovating)
• condensed old patient charts to be scanned
• scanned old patient charts
• taken recycling to the dump
• shredded receipts from the ’60s
• assembled folders of information for newly pregnant women
• made bank deposits
• finger painted a sign
• sent certified mail
• checked if patients’ Medicaid was active
• confirmed patients’ appointments
• answered the phone

As you can see, it is very intellectually stimulating work! Well, maybe not, but it helps keep the place running and I go home tired at the end of the day.

I also have chores as part of contributing to the community that live together here. I get to feed the chickens and check for eggs. I’m not really a city girl but it’s still the closest to farm life I’ve ever gotten, so I have to admit, it is sort of exciting.

If I keep my eyes open when going through patient charts and listen when the nurses and midwives discuss patients, I can learn some pretty interesting and sometimes sad stories. I’ll share a few here, or at least as much of them as I know.

Isabel, I’ll call her, was 18 when she was pregnant. At her first visit, she filled out a survey, of sorts. Married or single? “Married” she answered. For how long? “2 years” she wrote. Now, when I was 16, my biggest commitment was being the leader of my school’s pro-life club. I can’t quite wrap my mind around her situation.

“Donna” called one of the midwives at 1:00 am in tears. She had just called the police on her husband. He was undocumented so that call had a lot of implications, for them both. It is very likely that, after that night, he was deported. She had to make the impossible choice between her safety and the giving her child a father. I can’t quite wrap my mind around her situation.

Elizabeth, we’ll call her, came to the clinic, pregnant at the age of 17. She isn’t the youngest woman…girl…whose chart I’ve seen but hers hit me harder than anyone else’s. I’ll give you her story in the black and white, oversimplified fashion that I received it in.

• highest education: 9th grade
• baby’s father: not involved
• religion: Catholic
• have you ever been abused, sexually assaulted, or raped? yes

There was more, of course, but those things stood out to me. The juxtaposition of it all was crystal clear in the way she dotted the “I” in her name with a tiny heart. Her chart had no smaller chart within for the baby’s information. I have no idea if the pregnancy ended naturally or if she ended it by choice or if, maybe, she just had a complication during the birth and had to be transferred to the hospital. I can’t quite wrap my mind around her situation.

I only know fragments of these women’s stories and some of them are a few years old; still, please pray for them, their children, and for all people in similar situations. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be a mother and a teenager at the same time, but I’m trying my best to understand it better.

I chose this volunteer opportunity not because I wanted to hold a bunch of babies or learn more about the field of nursing. I came here, because for a long time I have been passionately pro-life. To say that, while having very little knowledge of pregnancy and all that comes after it, felt a bit like I was kidding myself, to be honest. I have a long way to come still, but I’m happy knowing that it’s all leaving the realm of the abstract and entering my scope of reality.

I’m a big proponent of adoption, both of infants and from foster care. I’ve done some research and found some great sites I want to share with you lovely people:

Foster care children are in incredible need and statistically Americans have no excuses: Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption

Birth moms are brave and selfless and in need of our support: BraveLove

Most people don’t talk about adoption with the right facts, attitude, or terminology. Did you know, “for each baby that is placed for adoption, there were 36 couples hoping to adopt that baby”? That’s according to Talk About Adoption 

If you have a connection to or story about adoption that you want to share with me, please check out the Contact page. I would love to understand the issue of adoption in America on a more personal, second-hand basis.

It’s my goal to help make Holy Family a member of BraveLove.org so that we can better serve women who come to us with an unplanned pregnancy. Wish me luck as I attempt to suggest this to my boss sometime in the (hopefully near) future.