I never imagined I would see all I have seen and experience all I have experienced here in a short week and a half. I got what I came for, and so, so much more. As hard as it has been being away from my husband and 2 boys, this trip was worth it, the experiences have made me feel really truly ready to practice on my own, and I have new skills to go along with it!
This place is amazing, and really dramatic and stressful, and joyful. Someone could seriously make a reality series based on Vila Central Hospital, and every single day they would have an excess of captivating footage of all the crazy, and all of the amazing-ness that goes on here.
An intersex baby was born yesterday, he/she has an older sibling with the same thing. What are the chances?! Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, never thought I'd see it....
Yesterday I also spent some time in the NICU with a 30 ish weeker, he is 10 days old and had been going downhill... he had 2 episodes where he stopped breathing altogether, and both times I was alone (just checking in on him, this tiny little person) and called someone else in to help me resuscitate him. We did, and after got him on skin to skin and he started rooting and breastfed! Today he nursed again too, and I think the skin to skin and small amounts of breast milk are helping him some. They also gave him a blood transfusion which is helping.
I've been a bit frustrated by the lack of the nurses being willing to push for something with the Drs. For example, the chart said with that baby, nothing by mouth because of the apnea. But, baby was rooting and self latching when put on skin to skin! The nurse said no, don't feed him. So I marched down to the peds department of the hospital and spoke to the Dr who gave the orders, told her baby was rooting and self latching, and she said "great, we thought we were going to lose him yesterday!" so went back and told the momma that yes, you can feed your baby, because thank goodness he is now strong enough to try to get it!

Today, Elias and I attended 3 births, then in the afternoon after getting to the point of complete exhaustion, we decided to stay and attend a very premature twin birth, we very actively participated in the positive outcomes for all 3 ladies involved (and I am sure daddy was happy too :) and I am so grateful for the experience. Elias led the resuscitation, in the most amazing way! And initially he was surrounded by people that he had to teach how to help him resuscitate, but of course he handled it well and eventually got that baby breathing (and also got a umbilical catheter in!). And I managed the vaginal delivery of twin #2 after the OBs attending said they couldn't get the nuchal arms to budge and would need to do a cesarean section, I just asked them if I could try too, and they said yes and they went to go prep for surgery.

On top of the crazy births, I have gotten a lot of amazing easy normal births, crying healthy babies, and a ton of suturing experience!
Also good is I have had to do a few IVs, and got two 16 gauge needle IVs in first try! Only tried because they were out of 18s, and 20s... they run out of supplies pretty quickly here...
And today we got to attend the birth of a baby born in the caul (in an unbroken bag of waters)!!

Today is Tuesday at home, we arrive home Saturday, I can't wait to kiss my boys!

The first picture is me giving twin B oral vitamin K, the 2nd is Elias giving some to twin A