birthdays and babies

So I officially celebrated my birthday last week and celebrations lasted almost the entire week!  My class really made me feel special and I must say,  so far 23 is treating me very well :)

I started the week off on Sunday by going to a beautiful park that overlooks the city of Perth.

 

Monday was my actual birthday, and it was great! I had class for the majority of the day but truly I cannot imagine a better way to celebrate than being here and learning about mother and child health care. What a blessing to be living out my dream. I get to study midwifery!!! Happy Birthday to me! :) I got to skype with my family who was on holiday in Lake Tahoe. That was definitely the highlight of my day. Thank God for modern technology, hey! So nice to see them.

A sweet friend of mine from Denmark made me a beautiful little birthday breakfast on Monday. Complete with Danish flags and all! I loved it.

best looking family ever. ;)

Tuesday was my American birthday (I guess thats one perk of being 16 hours ahead of my hometown- two birthday days! ) so I continued to feel the love as heaps of friends and family from home sent me birthday wishes.

 On Wednesday my class decided to dress up to commemorate the year me and a few of the girls were born (there were 2 other birthdays as well this week in my class)  so it became a full on tacky 80's day. Yeah to 88'

Future Midwives of the nations, people. 

The birthday girls. In all their glory. Welcome to 23.

 In fact, on Wednesday we had our first "real" antenatal clinic set up. Real pregnant mothers from around the YWAM base came to have a check up and we greeted them in these ridiculous clothes! :) As I shared last week, we learned how to do urine analysis, hemoglobin testing to check for anemia, the importance of a proper diet, and vitals (blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and temperature). We were able to use everything we learned last week to practice on the real mums!  We also learned how to do palpations, which is a way to feel the fetus inside the mothers stomach to be able to determine its position and growth! I never realized you can actually feel the baby inside the stomach and even be able to tell how it is lying! Its incredible.

The remainder of the week we learned about some pretty challenging topics including fistulas and female genital mutilation.  It is a hard thing to hear about, but its vital to know so that we can be apart of making it different. I will be going into more detail on these subjects soon!

I ended the week visiting a National Park where I was able to pet and play with some kangaroos, koalas, wombats, and a bunch of other Aussie animals.  

 

I continue to be really busy with school. I am learning lots and cant wait to share everything, but I just thought I would be a little more lighthearted this week and just let you know I am also able to enjoy my time here in Australia. I just continue to feel blessed everyday that this is my life. Patience and obedience are really rewarding,  and God is just so good.

Thanks for being apart of my journey.