Born: Alive Male

That’s what the papers said when she & her baby were being discharged from the hospital on Thursday. Most important thing first - alive, and secondary to that, "it's a boy!" It struck me as odd at first, but with all of the poverty issues in rural Swaziland, I don’t even want to imagine how many babies are stillborn. I continued to read through the paperwork as the hospital administrator calculated the costs for this new mom, who had spent one night in the hospital. I was wondering if they would charge more since a white person was there to pick her up, and I was thinking about friends of mine who have recently had babies in the US and how many thousands of dollars that had cost. I knew that it probably wasn’t going to cost over 100 Rand (about 13 US Dollars), but was completely shocked when the administrator told me it would be 30 Rand (just over 4 US Dollars). Granted, she did have to pay the admittance fee the day before (about $2) and we were stopping by the pharmacy next to get a few types of pills for her to take (about $.50 worth)...which still only brings us up to a total of about $6.50 for this woman to deliver her baby in a hospital and stay the night! We got all of the pills, picked up her bag, and found she and her brand new baby boy (wrapped in the towel/diaper & blanket she brought with her from home). As she got in the back seat of my car, holding her newborn baby, I buckled my seatbelt (which seemed wrong if a newborn wasn’t going to be in a car seat!), and reflected back on how I had gotten to be in this situation.
On Tuesday morning, a couple of ministry partners & I were going up to the carepoint to give the teacher her lessons for the week. As we pulled into through the gate, we could see this young pregnant woman laying on her side in the shade. She was laying on a woven grass mat in the dirt, up against the corrugated tin sided cooking shelter. She looked uncomfortable, obviously towards the end of her pregnancy. As we asked questions, we found out that she is 26 years old and this would be her fourth child. Leaving the carepoint later that morning, we wished her well during these last weeks of pregnancy.
The next morning, we got word that she had gone into labor during the night & wanted to go to the hospital to deliver. As we went to pick her up, I followed a rough dirt road until it wasn’t really a road anymore, but just well-worn foot paths. I turned into the gate of her property, and saw in front of me a humble (to say the least) homestead. Her house was made of mud and sticks and about 10 feet by 10 feet, and not quite tall enough for me to stand up straight in. On the left side of it, was an outdoor cooking structure. We drove up closer to her house, and there were about 4 or 5 women around, some sitting, some working. As they were getting her up off the bed, we asked if she had money for the hospital, and the neighbor lady replied that she had enough to take care of it. This 26 year old woman had lost both of her parents, and the baby’s father wasn’t taking care of her, but her neighbor was.
We pulled away from her homestead, trying to go slowly enough that the bumpy dirt road wouldn’t bother her, but her moaning continued. I decided that I could multitask & started timing her contractions (based on her moans) while driving down the dirt road. From what I could tell, they were about 3 minutes apart, which led me to start thinking of how we could deliver a baby on the side of the road using only what I had in the car!
Thankfully, we made it to the paved road and then were able to drive to the hospital about 45 minutes from her homestead. We got her into the matenity (yep, that’s how they spell it) ward, and her son was born less than 45 minutes later!
They admitted her for the night, so first thing the next morning, we went back to pick her up & take her home. She had named her son Lindane, which means “taken care of”. Thankfully that’s how he entered this world - taken care of by his mother, who was taken care of by her neighbor. And God willing, that’s how he will continue to live and grow in a nation which seems to have been abandoned, he will be a reminder that God has and will bring people alongside of he & his mom to take care of him.