No placenta left behind.

Waiting. Waiting. Taking inventory of the emergency pharmacy. Administering medication to sick babies. Nebulizing someone with pneumonia. Waiting. Waiting. Drinking mate. Drinking coffee in the dirty kitchen, three people on a tiny wooden bench. Eating cookies. Gossiping. A kitten mewls. Waiting. Waiting. Fixing insurance forms.

Knock knock knock. Doctora!

The couple is a dude who is freaking out and a woman breathing heavily, wet stains all down her sweat pants. We pile into the birthing room and send the dad to go buy needed supplies at a pharmacy. Deysi, la obstetriz, takes over. She calms the mama down, goes over breathing and what's specifically going happen during the birth. A quick check on the baby's process then a look at the clock. Part of her brain is calculating how much time until the baby must come out and the other is clearly thinking about going to bed.

The mom to be is not into it. She has been pushing for about 30 minutes now and is tiring out. The baby is still in there and mama is fading fast. Rocio, la doctora, tells momma that if she gives up the baby dies cause we can't cut anyone open in Urubamba. This motivates the mom to push enthusiastically and POP! Baby!

Healthy, 3.10 kilos, cute, eyes moving like crazy. All is well in baby world.

Mama is still having issues. The placenta came out quickly but during the birth there was some tearing and now we've got some blood flow to deal with. Deysi starts cleaning and suturing. After the external lesions are sewed up there is still bleeding. Turns out that just inside the vaginal opening is a small lesion. More sewing. We are now an hour into the birthing process and new momma is losing blood still. I've got no context for whats going on, so a part of me begins to worry but Rocio and Deysi are calm, so I do not sweat it. We get a speculum and dilate her to see what is going on inside. More blood comes pouring out and as we are swabbing inside with cotton bandages a 1 inch piece of placenta appears. Well, that is that. The bleeding stops. We are done.

Deysi wipes her brow. That birth took about two hours. She is tired. Im wired, adrenaline pumping hard at all the new information to process. Take away: Never forget to get all the placenta out!