Dear Charis Family,

Even though I joyfully find myself a very busy mommy of four with a husband who is often away, God is so gracious in that He continues to very creatively provide me with opportunities to serve young mothers.  This month that opportunity came through a dear friend of mine who gave birth to her second baby girl just a few weeks ago. 

I was not involved in her pregnancy and birth as a midwifery student or doula, but just as a loving friend.  She and her little family live in a small town 8 hours away from the area of Kenya I live in.  Several weeks before her due date I was delighted that they moved five minutes away from me so she could have the safe and wonderful birth experience that she dreamed of.

God did give her a beautiful birth experience, just as we’d all been praying for.  We were all so thankful and reveling in God’s goodness, but unfortunately, a couple days later she developed mastitis – I believe due to stress and over doing it, worsened by the fact that she was especially susceptible. She’d had mastitis with her first baby and also has the challenge of deeply inverted nipples. 

She believed she had a clogged duct and when I visited her postpartum she seemed to have gotten things under control.  But as we kept in touch she shared that things kept flaring up and by the time she was only two weeks postpartum she had gone through THREE bout’s of mastitis!   Even though she really should have been glued to her bed with her baby, she was feeling pressure to travel home because the house she her family were staying in was no longer available for them to stay in.  The day before she left I went to see her and was horrified that she was the one to come out and open the gate to let me in!  She was up and about trying to get the family packed and ready for the long journey home.  She still believed she was simply struggling with clogged ducts but I recognized that she clearly was dealing with reoccurring mastitis and asked her to please reconsider and come stay with me in my home so she could rest and recover FULLY.  She felt pressure to get home and confident that things would improve once she was there.

I probably don’t have to tell you that’s not what happened.  When she got home things became much, much worse.  She was caring for her 19 month old and her new born with full blown mastitis.  She had a raging fever and unfathomable pain, but she became so used to taking pain and fever reducers she didn’t realize how out of control things had gotten.  She later told me that one day she was shaking so badly she thought she was having a seizure and almost dropped her baby.

She finally went to seek medical care in a local clinic and they assured her that the two baseball sized lumps in her breasts were indeed just clogged ducts and she should continue treating herself accordingly.  During that time she was put on two different rounds of antibiotics which did nothing but give her and her baby yeast infections and thrush.  She and her husband do not have a vehicle so they continued to rely on the very limited medical care options in their area, to no avail.

When she was 5 weeks postpartum, an opportunity arose for them to borrow a friend’s car.  The very day the car became available they drove 2 hours to the nearest city in search of better medical care.  There they realized the giant lumps in her breast were not clogged milk ducts, but huge abscesses.  She called me crying and it was the first time I had any idea all this had been going on.  She told me she was going to be flown back to our city for emergency surgery to drain the abscesses and I promised her I would be here in whatever capacity she and her family needed.  My heart was so incredibly broken for her. 

Within 24 hours she was in a hospital 45 minutes away from me.  She called me crying again and said she was being prepped for surgery and asked me to pray for her newborn because she didn’t know what kind of care she would receive from the nurses or when she would be able to breastfeed her again.  She went in for surgery and the surgeon drained 400 ml of puss from the abscesses in her breast!  She was started on the strongest antibiotic there is and was told she would not be able to breast feed again until she finished the round.  But I’m telling you, this mama was a super hero if I’ve ever seen one in my life.  Even with an incision right on her nipple, sedated or in excruciating pain, she kept pumping and expressing and was determined to keep her milk supply up so that she could nurse her baby again.  It makes me cry just thinking about her dedication and sacrifice.

While all this was going on, my husband was away and I was alone with no help in caring for our own 4 babies.  I was DESPERATE to help her, but with my kids not allowed in the hospital and no one to leave them with, I was limited in ways I could help her.  PRAISE GOD another very dear friend of ours who is also breastfeeding “just so happened” to arrive in Nairobi for a completely unrelated purpose, the exact same day my friend was airlifted in!  So we worked it out that she could spend the daytime hours either staying at or making trips to the hospital to nurse our friend’s newborn while I pumped at home throughout the day.  Then every night at midnight I drove the 45 minutes to the hospital to breastfeed the baby and drop off the pumped milk I had accumulated. One of our ministry team members stayed with our 3 older kids at home and one came with me to stay with my 3 month old in the car since she wasn’t allowed in the hospital (though I did have to sneak her in once). The few hours I spent away in the middle of the night were too long to be away from my own baby since she is also exclusively breastfed and with all my extra milk going to my friend’s baby, I had no pumped milk to leave behind for her. 

By the third night, my friend’s husband was completely drowning trying care for his very ill and debilitated wife and their infant daughter.  My friend couldn’t even feed herself or do anything on her own and he was completely overwhelmed trying to do a good job of caring for them both.  They asked me to bring her baby home with me and I was so thankful to God for providing me the opportunity of doing something so special for them.  What greater honor is there than to be entrusted with someone’s tiniest and most precious treasure!?  She was home with us for 3 days and 3 nights.  The day after the baby came to stay with me our friend who was helping me co-nurse her had to return to her own village as well, so the entire responsibility of caring for and sustaining two tiny babies (and to a lesser extreme my 3 older children) was ENTIRELY on me alone.  Though the situation should have been totally overwhelming, God’s grace and peace filled me and our home in such a precious way.  I cried when I thought about how beautiful it is to be able to sustain my own precious tiny baby with the body and milk God has given me, but to literally get to help keep another tiny baby ALIVE in such a desperate and dire situation – that is just too overwhelming.

The day the baby was able to return to her parents at the hospital, I took over the care for their 19 month old daughter who had been staying with other missionaries who were returning to their village as well.  It was a very sweet time and opportunity to serve this dear family in their desperate need. 

FINALLY the sweet mama was discharged from the hospital and they were all back together again as a family under my roof!  It was such a sweet, sweet time.  We had the privilege of having them in our home for a little over a week as the mama continued to fully heal and recover and until the doctor gave her the go ahead to return home again.  They went home with a very precious Kenyan friend who will be taking care of all the household chores and helping to care for the babies so that mama doesn’t risk overdoing it again.

I’m so thankful that Charis Childbirth recognizes and highly prioritizes, honors, and teaches the incredible value and importance of mamas resting and fully embracing the postpartum period.  It is a time for a mama to heal, to be served and blessed by others, and to enjoy to the fullest the preciousness of bonding with her baby during that sweet time that is once in a life time and over all too quickly.  As I am exposed more and more to mamas and even other midwives, I am shocked and horrified to see that this is not something well understood and certainly not widely taught.  In fact, many in the birth world, including many midwives I have encountered, teach the opposite!  My friend, and maybe even her baby, could have lost their lives over this.  It was a great honor to be able to help her in her time of need, but I am also devastated that her situation escalated to this point and I would have much rather been there for her to help her early on, long before it became a life threatening crisis.

It is a tragic story, in which God in His grace and love has interwoven so much beauty and good, as only He can.  I pray He will continue to do so in hopes that this story will serve as an exhortation to all women to support each other better, and to all dear, sweet postpartum mamas, to humbly and joyfully accept the help and service of others when they TRULY need it most.

Please continue to pray for my friend and her sweet little family.  It has been an incredibly trying and scary time for them, but she shared with me that they are seeing many things God is teaching them through it. Please pray that God will provide them with their own vehicle soon as well.

mama, her husband, and their two girls after she returned from the hospital