It is a record for us! Every mother has her own unique story and I want to share one of them with you. Martha’s story is typical of the Kalinga tribal women and it embodies well the reason I am so passionate about our work here. Martha is a 35-year old mother of nine. She and her family live in one of the surrounding resettlement villages that we reach out to on a regular basis. At the beginning of her pregnancy we took her history and found out that she had delivered all her children at home alone. Her second to last child died shortly after birth and at her last delivery she almost died from a serious complication. We went regularly to her village and did prenatals for her and the other women who were expecting. In this village we are always warmly received for prenatal care and health teachings, but rarely asked to attend births. We were all so excited last week when Martha and her husband chose to deliver at our clinic! Her 10th baby is a beautiful boy named Jacob, who was delivered with gentleness and compassion by one of our visiting midwifery students from Davao. Here is a picture of Martha, baby Jacob and some of her other children at her home during our postpartum visit.
