By that time I knew I had lost a large
amount of blood. The deacons wife was concerned because I was ice
cold. As we were driving I felt myself losing my grip and the last
thing I remember is seeing rain start pouring down. It hasn't rained
yet this year, and I remember asking “Is it raining?”. They told
me it was, and then I told them I was going to pass out- and from
there things were a bit fuzzy. When we arrived at the hospital they
brought out a wheelchair and rushed me to the delivery ward, where
they left Sydney, the deacon and his wife in the hallway and pulled
me into a room with about 4 beds but luckily only one was occupied, a
lady waiting to have a c-section. The doctor tried to get my history.
I can't explain the amount of pain I was in or the dizziness I felt-
and he asked me to spell my name and I got K and A but after that I
failed to remember. He asked me the name of our church and I couldn't
remember it no matter how hard I tried.I just remember repeating over and over "I am passing out, I am passing out."
At that point, none of the five nurses
in the room had even stood up off their chairs so he called over and
said “Hello- we have a patient, someone come get her vitals.” So
a girl stood and got my BP, told the doctor and started walking away.
He said “and her temperature?” So the girl took my temperature-
shouted it out loud and sat down. He then got furious and said “What
about her pulse? I said her vitals! This is a patient get up!” So
she took my pulse as I sagged lower in the chair unable now to hold
myself up. Sorry for the gore, but blood had soaked through a towel,
slip, my skirt and two chitenges. The fact that I couldn't spell my
name had me in terror that I was dying. The doctor had now got his
tools out and gloves on and he turned around to see the bed with no
linens. He asked another nurse to put linens on the bed and she turned to me and said told
me- 'just give me one of your chitenges, Ill lay it down" (a chitenge is a piece of cloth wrapped
around the waist for modesty).
The doctor looked like he might
actually slap her. He said “This is a hospital we have procedure-
put linens on the bed” At that point I think I must have blacked
out because next thing I knew I was being put on the bed and the
nurse was being told to put on gloves. I will spare you most of the details except to say that I felt very alone, very scared, very
tired, very angry, and completely out of control. At a point, the baby
became stuck because I hadn't dilated enough.. The nurses couldn’t find the tools he needed, so he
had to “improvise” and he removed it himself. Then he showed my
baby to me.
That was the worst moment of my life,
and I will never be able to forget it.
At that point I kind of lost it and
started trying to pull iv's and instruments out. I can't explain it
except that in my mind I felt that if he had just left the baby
inside it would have made it. I was convinced at that moment that he
had just ruined everything. Like our child just needed more time but
now it was out and it was over and I just wanted everyone to stop
touching me. They had to call our deacons wife in to calm me down so
they could complete the procedure. At that point they also let Sydney
come to the door, so that they also show him our child.
We had not come prepared, so I had no
change of clothes, no food, no soap, no blankets, no nothing. I had
to put my blood soaked clothes back on, and they wheeled me to the
female ward. There was only one empty bed in an open room of about 40
women. There was a flat sheet draped over the plastic mattress, and a
wool blanket on the bed. Men are not allowed in the ward, so the
deacons wife came with me, Sydney gave her his sweatshirt to wear to
keep warm overnight. I was hooked to an IV so she helped me use the
toilet, made sure I was covered and warm and drinking water. I used
one of my dirty chitenges as a pillow. The deacons wife was on the
bed with me.
They gave me drug after drug, some
injections, some orally, some through the IV. I was too dazed to even
ask but Sydney had told the doctors about my allergies. One of the
injections in my thigh made me almost scream in pain (and I have a
VERY high pain tolerance) and I even lost feeling in the leg for at
least 20 minutes. Sydney wanted to sleep in the car at the hospital
but I sent him home, there was nothing he could do. They let him come
in and say goodbye, and bring us toilet paper and water (you bring
your own supplies, there are just two toilets for all 40 patients to
share and you must have your own toilet paper, soap and food).
Our first night apart as husband and
wife was the night we went though the most trying moment of our
marriage thus far.
He left, with the intention of coming
Sunday morning with clean clothes, soap, supplies. We are so thankful
that without being asked, a brother from church called to tell Sydney
that he was preaching tomorrow so not to worry. Sydney called one of
our Bemba brethren who also prepared for the Bemba service so that
instead of trying to come before services to the hospital then go
back and try to manage preaching with his mind elsewhere, he could
just be with me. People pitched in and really supported us in a way
only brothers and sisters in Christ can.
Mrs Kapesa the deacons wife who stayed
with me spent part of the night sitting on the end of the bed with
me, and then when I slept she and the lady next to us shared a
plastic garbage bag laid on the floor, and she used a chitenge for a
blanket. On the floor with a stranger. Multiple times in the night I
woke to feel her adjusting my blankets and making sure my IV was
working. Selfless love that I couldn’t repay if I tried. In the
night, one of our other deacons daughters came to visit, she is a
nurse in training there. She brought us water, and medication for
Mrs. Kapesa's BP which she didn’t have time to bring from home.
At
some point in the night, the power went out and we were being
medicated and checked on by the nurses by candle light.
I just remember thinking that it
couldn't be real. I thought it was one of the nightmares I'd been
having. When I woke up still there it still somehow couldn't sink in.
The girl in the bed next to me was just 18. She also had a
miscarriage in June but had complications, so she had surgery at a
village clinic where they damaged he urinary tract and since then she
has had to have a bag attached. She has moved from hospital to
hospital since. She had been at Chilonga hospital for over a month,
just living there with her mom. Many others were miscarriages,
malaria, infections after labor, car accidents....
Laying in bed, I woke up many times
in the night to see cockroaches even on the bed. They didn’t even
phase me. The windows were open to let fresh air in, you can imagine
the smells, and mosquitoes also freely roamed. All around me was a
language I didn't understand, in a place I've never been with people
I didn’t know and a situation I couldn’t comprehend. If our
deacons wife hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have managed. I just
wouldn’t.
In the morning at 4am, When getting up
to go to the toilet I nearly dropped to the floor. They checked my
blood pressure and it was only 82/53. Mrs. Kapesa gave me a soda to
give me a little blood sugar rush, and a little while later Sydney came with
supplies, tea, coffee, fruit and clothes so I was able to clean
myself a bit, put on fresh clothes finally, brush my teeth, eat some bananas and feel a little
better. They even allowed Sydney to just be with me. Not sure if that
was laziness on their part, or preferential treatment because of skin
colour or just God's providence. The IV had fallen out in the night
and clotted, so they just decided to remove it but I received some
more drugs , took bloodwork and malaria bloodslide (which she took without gloves, and put down haphazardly on the wooly blanket while she did other things...). I ended up with 8 or 9
holes with bruising from those iv's and injections, plus the mistakes the nurses made. They claimed it
was hard to see my veins....
By 9 the doctor came. He explained
that due to the malaria, the baby must have developed an abnormality
or deformity, maybe deafness or something worse so the body rejected
it. All I could think of was- I still want a deaf baby. I just want
my baby back.
He said due to the conditions of the
place he was sure I'd be more comfortable at home, so without
discharging me they gave me oral drugs to take at home but we were to
come back Monday morning for an ultrasound. When we got home, ladies
from church came to visit and encourage me, some of whom have gone
through the same. The love and support has been overwhelming here,
and they have stood in for my family during such a hard time.
We went back to the hospital Monday
morning at around 6:30. We got my charts from the ward and went to
the x-ray/ultrasound ward. It was around 7:15, and I was told to
drink tons of water before the ultrasound. I did, and by 8 there was
still noone working in the ultrasound room... then 8;15, then 8:30.
At 8:45 I almost started crying because I was now in pain from my
full bladder but finally a woman came strolling in. She sent Sydney
to go pay the bill for the scan, and then did the ultrasound. She was
just silent- never said a word to me except “im done” when she
finished then she got up and walked away. As she was walking away
with me just lying there not knowing what to do she said “I said Im
done, you can come wait for your husband.” We waited, it took him
about 30 minutes because of the crowd of people. The whole time she
wasn't saying anything so after some minutes I finally just asked-
“What is the scan showing? is everything OK?” And she giggled,
yes, giggled- for an unknown reason and then said “No, It's not OK
There is still something there. It was an incomplete abortion.”
(The thing I hate the MOST is that in Zambia, miscarriages and
abortions are both called abortions.)
Once Sydney came back we had to find a
doctor to review and give us advice, the Congolese doctor who had
treated me Saturday and Sunday has gone on leave so the lady just
said “find a doctor”. Very helpful woman. We called our doctor in
Mpika that we use, and he then started calling to find doctors who
were on duty. The doctor who is on duty is a white German woman but
she never showed up for work. Another guy who had providentially seen
us with our doctor on Saturday saw Sydney and called him over. We
showed him our charts and he gave us some recommendations but also
gave us our doctors number. We called him and explained and he rushed
over to the hospital (we really like him) to see us. He borrowed a
room from another doctor and performed an exam and check for
infection. There is no infection and the bleeding is not as much but
I am still having a bit of cramping. He believes whatever is there is
small enough to come out on it's own, but if it can't within 24 hours
then I will have to go for a procedure tomorrow. He has given us
antibiotics and sent us home again so I can at least rest from home,
but tomorrow morning we will go back. If the uterus hasn't cleaned
itself out, I will be put under anesthesia and they will perform a
vacuum procedure to clear it.
Needless to say, I don't want to have
any sort of operation, major or minor. I was told how to prepare for
going into theatre tomorrow “just in case”. Our plea for prayer
now is that whatever is there will pass on it's own and I will be
well enough to finally be officially discharged tomorrow, without a
procedure done.
Every once in a while, reality sets
in. I had these hopes before the ultrasound this morning- maybe I had
twins and only one miscarried, maybe it was a mistake and the
ultrasound will miraculously have a heartbeat.
I will have thoughts: We should have
gone to the US next year with a 7 month old. We should have spent the
money we are saving on a crib. We should have, we would have, we
could have. I go through times of feeling a strange relief- and then
guilt. “Maybe I wasn’t ready to be a mom, and besides- I have
been absolutely terrified to deliver a baby in Zambia. All I know are
American hospitals and giving birth overseas was giving me so much
anxiety." I feel guilt over feeling that, and then I feel guilt about
the malaria. If we had just hung the net sooner. If I had just used
bug spray. I know this is probably normal but it's just... so hard.
I just want my child back.
Sydney has dried my tears, comforted
me and been a rock of support but I know he is also broken. This was
his baby. He was already such a proud Daddy. Now he is holding his
world and my world on his shoulders, cooking meals and checking my
temperature and getting me water and helping be move around but I
wonder how he's holding up deep down?
We have been blessed by the doctor,
who is a Christian. He has pointed us to Christ every step of the
way. Times when I feel like screaming he reminds us of God's
providence and His love for us. Sydney has been ceaselessly praying
and comforting me. It has brought a peace in my heart.
This has surely been the hardest thing we have gone through, and we can only take it a day at a time. We know
that God is watching over us and whatever happens, His reasoning is
better than anything we could have hoped for or imagined. One day, I
will ask Him why he took our baby before I ever got to kiss their
little mouth. Then I will understand. For now, I trust Him and his
reasons which are beyond all comprehension.
