My first birth experience...

I`ve been here in Copan for five days now and time is already starting to muddle itself in my mind. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment and I suppose it never is. I seem to have forgotten my other experiences and transitions when coming to a new country and adjusting to the culture, in the past. There are very few people here that speak English. When I do come across somebody that speaks English well enough to carry on a conversation it feels like a huge treat to be able to speak and share even the simplest things. Already I find myself translating English words to Spanish. Even in writing this I find myself halting and feeling almost awkward, lacking the flow and pleasure that I usually get from writing.

My first two days here, Maritza took me to the local museum where we browsed Mayan artifacts, sacrificial tools and carvings. The next day we went to a local sanctuary for rescued birds. Some of the parrots could bite up to 2000 pounds with their beaks and live up to 100 years in captivity! There were also spiders the size of my hands that had created massive webs between the banana leaves. These gave me the willies!

At first the food was delicious and exciting but has begun to lapse into repetitiveness. I´m sure soon enough I wont even think about it. Pretty much every single meal consists of corn tortillas, beans, rice and really salty cheese. The maize (corn) is brought in on donkeys and ground up in a store down the street from the house. The beans are always cooked in some sort of meat, sometimes I find pieces of brown shriveled-like flesh amongst them. The concept of being a vegetarian here seems to only go in partially. Hey, as long as your not actually eating the meat it must be OK to have hearts, kidneys and bones floating in your soup or beans! I´ve been so revolted a few times I just couldn’t eat it. I ended up skipping lunch yesterday. I had bit of a fever so wasn´t hungry anyway.

Yesterday I started at Guacamaya, the local language school. Julia my teacher helped my mom learn Spanish when she was here two years ago. Its been nice to have the extra structure of learning on top of the stuff that I have initiated learning myself.

Having had a few days to settle in, I headed to the maternity clinic
this morning. Maritza had taken me there a few days ago and introduced me to Dr. Nelson and explained that I was planning on
studying to be a midwife (partera) and was looking to gain some birth experience.

When I arrived today it was a different doctor on and nobody had an idea where I had come from or why I was there. I arrived at around 8:30am and spent the whole morning in the waiting room. I started to wonder what the hell I was doing there and why I thought I could just march in and get involved in such a thing as birthing when I can speak only a little Spanish and had never before even witnessed a birth! When I was peaking in my frustration and thinking it was time to take the 15 bus ride back to Copan, I hear my name being yelled down the hall, “Maya!!! Maya” I ran down the hall, the next thing I knew a smock was being thrown at me and I was in the birth room with a woman on the table, her feet in the metal stirrups. There were two women in the pre-delivery room where they ride out the contractions until it’s time to give birth. I had seen the woman briefly but didn't think that she was near ready as she was very quiet and her belly seemed really small.
But there she was, ready to deliver!

The doctor and his attendant took it all very casually, squirting the woman's crotch with a big plastic water bottle full of water and soap. Underneath her was a garbage can with a plastic bag to catch the water, blood and other matter. I expected it all to take so much longer. After the birth I asked her how many children she had, this was her second. As the baby moved further down the birth canal the doctor reached in with a pair of flat ended scissors and snipped the amniotic sac at which point water and blood came shooting out and w all jumped! Before I knew what was happening a small black patch of hair started to show itself at the opening of her vagina, retreating at times as she rested between pushes. The mother bore down in an almost eerie silence, the doctor inserting his finger in such I a way that made me visibly cringe and the doctor and his assistant laugh. After the head came out everything happened so fast. I was shocked at how hard the doctor pulled on the baby’s head, turning its body! When it was out he held the small purple thing in his left had as be clamped the umbilical cord with his right. I was shocked at how almost animalistically he handled the newborn infant, almost tossing it onto a small metal tray with a rough sheet and blaring light. It took only a few seconds for the baby to start crying letting out its first feeble gasps of air. What a way to enter the world! It didn´t even seem like a baby to me. I found myself not so much interested in the newborn but more in the mother and her reaction after the birth. I felt almost voyeuristic in standing there watching, a complete stranger. Something that would never happen in Canada. I had an intense moment of culture shock comparison and what different worlds she and I were from. At one point we were alone in the room, we locked eyes for a few seconds the only real interaction that we had. In lacking the language to speak to her, I hoped that for those few moments I was able to convey all that I felt by looking into her eyes. I wanted to thank her over and over again for letting me witness such an intimate thing as this. And like that it was over....

When I left the clinic a few moments later to catch the bus to Copan I found myself shaking with adrenalin, shock, excitement but mostly pure awe without the words to truly express the experience of my first birth.....