Elizabeth is a woman in her late twenties. She has no idea of her age because such information was never recorded where she and her family lives in a remote village in Asia Pacific where my family lived for the last 10 years. They have 7 girls, ranging from around 12 to baby.
A few days before Christmas, a couple of years ago, Elizabeth was pregnant with her youngest. There is no medical help in her village (just us missionaries who get called to come when there is a problem). She had no problems delivering any of her other babies, but sometime through her labour I was called to help. I entered the tiny dark room where she sat labouring, she was clearly exhausted, dehydrated and in pain. I her gave her the only relief I had, some Hydrolyte and some pain killers. She continued to labour for a few more hours and finally this precious little baby girl was born. She had the chord around her neck, and wasn’t breathing well, but praise God after unwrapping the cord and putting her in the recovery position she started to cry – a good indication that things were probably going to be okay.
Until us moving into the village, newborn babies were not touched until the placenta was delivered. Previously they would leave the baby lying on the floor and when they felt they had waited long enough, the people will start pulling on the cord and pushing hard on her stomach to get the placenta to come out. This method had caused deaths. Thankfully most people had started to take our advice to pick up the baby, and breastfeed, which helps the placenta come away quicker, and this had been successful for other mums.
I encouraged her to breastfeed the baby, and she took my advice, and the baby started sucking. I did however have to talk her out of pulling on the chord and others pushing her hard on the stomach. As she tried to birth the placenta, I realised this labour was different to many I had witnessed before, there was so much blood. The blood would get instantly congealed, and the other ladies would use a stick to poke the blood through the gaps in the floorboards to stop it from gathering where she sat.
Elizabeth became more and more exhausted as time went on and no placenta came out. A few times her eyes rolled back in her head and the ladies around her started to shake her, and pull her by the fingers, yelling at her to wake up, that she wasn’t allowed to die. I wasn’t sure if she was going to make it.
I felt weak and powerless, I kept praying. I had nothing physically that would help her get this placenta to come out. Being over the Christmas period I knew that it would be very hard to get a plane to come in for a medical evacuation out of the village and to a hospital in town. It was also getting later in the day, and I knew the later it was the more impossible it would be. I was able to get hold of a pilot, but as expected they couldn’t come that day. I consulted the trusty internet on advice about leaving the placenta inside, and it was decided that someone would cut the cord, and Elizabeth would travel 2 hours downriver in boat to the nearest clinic. This was the next best option to a plane. We prayed and hoped that there would be someone there that was trained to give her the help she needed for the placenta to come out. They family packed up their things and headed downriver as it started to rain. I trusted God and his timing and prayed that He would spare Elizabeth’s life. Praise God we got word the next day that Elizabeth had survived and that someone had helped the placenta be born, but this was not the end of this story.
Two days later Elizabeth and her family came back to the village. she was still exhausted and very sore, but happy that the placenta was no longer inside of her.
When asked how the placenta had come out, she said that no one was at the clinic, but someone helped it to come out manually. She had shaved her hair, which they do when they are sick because they believe that if someone gets hold of your hair then they will use it to make evil spirits do bad to you. To avoid getting sicker you cut your hair it and hide it yourself. She also mentioned that she was cold and wanted to sit by the fire. My instincts told me that she was fevered and thought maybe because of how the placenta came out that it was possible there was still some placenta inside and she could have an infection. I checked her temperature, and she was fevering. I decided to start treating her with an oral antibiotic. Giving her the instructions on how to take the next lot of antibiotics I said goodbye and said that I would check on her the next day.
Over the next day I was told that she had stopped taking the antibiotics because it made her feel sick, and there was no convincing her otherwise. I knew that she was going downhill fast, and it became evident that we needed to call in a plane to take her to town on a medical evacuation if she was going to live. Thankfully a plane was able to get her, and we flew to the hospital in town.
When we arrived at the hospital, she looked so bloated, that the nurses thought at first, she was a pregnant lady coming in to have her baby. When I explained to them why she was there, and that I suspected that she had an infection from part of the placenta being left inside, they first told me that there were no gynaecologists because they were all away for Christmas and that I should seek help at another hospital. They did agree to do a manual examination and get some blood tested done first to see if they were any indication of an infection. The results came back negative for infection, but that she had lost so much blood that she would need 6 bags of blood to get better. We all agreed that if she stayed at the hospital, she could get the blood she needed and would get help from gynaecologist via tele-health. We were happy we stayed there, because we found out later that there were actually no gynaecologists on the whole island in that period of time, so it wouldn’t have mattered if we went to another hospital or not.
Blood was definitely not something she would have been able to get in the village, and we were so grateful she had stopped taking the antibiotics, prompting us to get her to town.
Praise God we now knew she needed the blood, but the first thing you need to know is that if you need blood, it is up to your family and friends to source it for you, the hospital does not provide it for you. The usual method is to drive to a blood bank and find out if they have all the bags of blood with your blood type, and if not, you drive for few hours and see if they have any there. If that fails, you then ask friends and family to donate. We also found out that the government will only give people three bags of blood for free per month, and as it would be given over a few days we decided to try for three at first.
My husband and I headed out in the morning, telling Elizabeth and her husband that we may be out all day because we were going to find blood for her. We drove down the road 10 minutes to the blood bank and asked for three bags. They had all three. We praised God and took the bags back to the nurse. She was so surprised when we told her we had all three. We questioned her surprise, we thought maybe there wasn’t sufficient space at the hospital to keep all three bags. Her answer was simply that there is space to keep all three, but she was just surprised we were able to get all three at the one place, because that never happens.
We knew God was looking after her, and she got stronger and stronger as she was given the blood.
On the third day when the blood had run out we headed out fully expecting a long day looking for more blood. We also expected to pay this time because she had used up her three free ones for the month. But God is good all the time and there again in the place just down the road there were three bags of blood available, and it was free because it was now the first of January, and therefore a new month.
A few days later Elizabeth was able to leave the hospital. She had an ultrasound to confirm there was no placenta inside, and she was also be treated for malaria she contracted while staying in hospital.
This is Elizabeth a few months after. I took this picture of her as she was walking out to her garden, all kids in tow, each carrying an item to help in the garden.
I thought of how different life would have been for them if their mum had passed away, and I praised God once again for saving her life.
Elizabeth hasn’t yet had an opportunity to understand God’s message of grace, yet He chose to love and care for her despite that. I have no doubt that God saved Elizabeth’s life for a reason, and I hope and pray that one day, when she, her husband and seven girls finally hear the truth of God’s word they will see that God saved her life not only once, in childbirth, but for all eternity too.
