Heart

At the end of the day sometimes I realize that I have been running on emotional autopilot. That in order to work effectively amidst trauma after trauma, I tuck my heart safely into my back pocket and only bring her out for fresh air when I get home. (Clare says I am queen of compartmentalizing). It scares me to work with a woman and then forget her name and her story two days later because I have worked with so many others between that time. I am trying to write it all down, but at the end of the day, I am tired.

On Friday a girl came to the clinic in early labor. She immediately struck me as different. Something about her energy, nothing concrete. Amidst five other laboring girls I did not have much time to speak with her, just a quick exam and instructions to walk the halls and drink a lot of tea.

After two women delivered and hemorrhaged, I sat down needing some water. I must have been sitting for ten minutes when I realized that this girl was sitting right next to me, quiet and almost ghost like.
Her English was good and we began to speak. Softly at first, and just formal exchanges, but soon her story started to spill out. Her name is Becky. She came alone. Her parents both died in the conflict and she has been on her own since she was eleven. She lived in the bush, surviving mostly on termites and crickets, until a year ago, when she met a man. She married him and got pregnant immediately. His parents disapproved the union and threatened to disown him if she kept the baby, so she was once again, out on her own. She had not eaten in three days when she arrived in early labor.

I was moved by the story, but I am not sure why I was more moved by her story then any of the other fifty stories I have heard that parallel hers. I went home that night thinking of her and returned on my day off to check on her. She still had not delivered and was sitting outside looking very despondent. We chatted for a bit but she was so disengaged that she didn't acknowledge the food or baby blanket Aimee and I had brought for her. She appeared in my dream last night.

Today, Monday, I did not see her when I arrived, but she was not in the delivery registry. I was elbow deep in a woman who had a prolapsed uterus when she was carried into the maternity ward on a stretcher. She was having a seizure. She was still pregnant. I immediately felt my heart jump from my back pocket into its proper feeling place. I sat with her and stroked her hair and massaged her feet until she came back into consciousness. When she awoke she began to sob. It was the first time since I have been here that I have seen raw and unapologetic human emotion.
I stayed with her most of the day. Feeling pulled in a way that I have not felt since I arrived.
When I left the hospital she still had not delivered and I will not be surprised if she is still in labor when I arrive tomorrow. I think she is psychologically holding herself back because she does not know where she will go when she delivers the baby. Tomorrow is her 18th birthday.

I feel joyfully aware that my heart is guiding me. I surrender and trust.