Quick Update

A quick update from us:

- Most of our posts lately have been baby related BECAUSE WE LOVE OUR BABY!. Being pregnant, giving birth and actually having Niko in our lives has been pretty all-consuming but we are really enjoying it. Niko is doing great, growing, healthy and happy!

- We are still trying to raise money for the Heartline Women's centre. We would be really honoured if you would make a donation, big or small, to this centre which provides critical pre-natal and birth services to poor Haitian women. We have set a goal of $5000 and quite a number of you wrote us and said you would donate - THANKS!

- My (Matt) parents arrive today! This is their third time coming to Haiti (4th for my mom!) and we are grateful to be in Haiti where many people have been able to visit. Won't you come too??

- Haiti remains interesting as always. Many people have been talking about how Haiti is at a crossroads, how there is unprecedented hope for Haiti right now. I think a lot of that is true, BUT, it appears that the government is going to fall this week. Some politicians are upset with the Prime Minister's track record thus far and apparantly she is being summoned for a non-confidence vote. She may resign to avoid having to face that embarassment. Either way, if she goes down, the government goes down. That means political, social and economic chaos, again. It is very frustrating after seeing a lot of positive signs the past 2 years in Haiti to be contemplating heading back down the path to turmoil.

Breathing deeply, here in Haiti.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

We feel SO BLESSED to have given birth to Niko at our home in Haiti. You can read our birth story on our blog at: mattandestherinhaiti.blogspot.com. It was a crazy night but as the dawn broke our dreams came true and we held Niko in our arms. It was exactly how we wanted it! Even though we didn’t know beforehand what the birth would be like, four wonderful and tremendously experienced women with Heartline Women’s Center here in Haiti do know what a perfect birth is, and they graciously and expertly shared it with us.

Since the birth last Saturday, we’ve been busy gazing at Niko and reading your notes of congratulations and blessing. THANK YOU. Many of you have also asked about sending a gift. We feel overwhelmed by your love and support and here is what we would offer as a suggestion:

We would be honoured if you would make a donation to the Heartline Women’s Center Pre-natal Program.

Here is some background on the program:

Each week the Heartline Pre-natal program sees twenty pregnant women, most of them who have never received pre-natal care. The program has been consistently full for two years with a wait list of twenty women. In the US or Canada, each of these woman's pregnancies would be "high risk". The program works with women that are malnourished, anemic, and suffering from diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis.

These challenges mean that we need to work with them and monitor their pregnancies very closely. We check their vitals and offer them vitamins and pre-natal/health education each Thursday. On a rotating schedule and when extra attention is needed they are seen in the exam room for a full pre-natal check at least once a month. At the end of their pregnancy we see them in the clinic room weekly.

When it comes time to deliver their babies, the women can come to the Women's Center to have their baby delivered under the care of a Certified Professional Midwife. Most women in Haiti will deliver at home without the help of a medical professional. Often times women will attempt to get into a hospital to deliver, only to find out that the hospital is full or to learn that the expense is too great. Over and over again we've seen horrible outcomes for women who could not get help when they were in labor and needed immediate medical attention. Haitian women have very few choices.

This is where we come in ... Heartline offers the women in our program a safe, clean, peaceful and loving place to experience labor and delivery with trained Midwives to assist them throughout their labor and delivery. There is no cost to the woman. We are here to serve them.

There is an enormous list of supplies that the Heartline Pre-Natal/Birth Center needs to continue offering exceptional care to pregnant women of Haiti. The list includes vitamins and other meds, IV equipment, hospital beds, oxygen tanks, towels and clothing, teaching tools, vaccines and many more small but essential items.

A donation of $50 will provide pre-natal vitamins for all 20 women in the program for a week.

A donation of $100 will cover the ENTIRE cost of one safe labour and delivery at the Women’s Center.

Every little bit helps - $5, $20, $100, $500. Whatever you are able to share will make a pregnancy and birth a little closer to the joyful miracle that it was for us and should be for all women.

Here is how you can help.

1. Send a donation directly to the Heartline’s office in the US. Please be sure to write: Heartline Pre-Natal Program (NIKO) on the memo line of your cheque.
Heartline Ministries
PO Box 898
Sunnyside, WA 98944

2. Donate to Heartline Women’s Program through PayPal. Go the the Heartline website and click on the "Donate Women's Program" link.

3. Send us (Matt and Esther) a cheque and we will collectively write a cheque to the Heartline Pre-Natal program. (This may be the easiest option for people in Canada because Heartline cannot currently receive Canadian $ cheques at their Washington address).

For those living in Haiti, you can donate directly to Heartline in person OR write us a cheque or give us cash and we will donate in your name.

Matt Van Geest
59 Simpson Road
St.Catharines, ON L2N 3Z5

We are most honoured by YOUR support of the Heartline Pre-Natal program.

With love,

Matt, Esther, Gabriela and Niko

As it turns out we don't need to go out and buy another "GWO tété" [BIG breast] as Gabriela has been talking about this for weeks. My milk was already here when Niko arrived due to Gabriela's love love relationship with nursing. Soooo, on the midwives suggestion, because my milk was a bit too milky for little Niknik, I encouraged Gabriela to nurse a bit too just to reduce the quantity a bit while at the same time not keeping my milk supply strong. Well we didn't even have to ask Gabriela because as soon as she sees them, she all game. Yesterday my breasts grew bigger than my belly so I knew the milk was even more HERE. Gabriela climbed up for a nurse and after a few big sucks sat up exclaiming in front of us and our neighbours "Mwen pa vle lèt!" [I don't want MILK!]. We all burst out laughing and she got cross-looking and then burst out laughing too. Then she asked Matt if she could nurse on him instead. We took this photo about 2 minutes later.
What a gift it is to be able to nurse! While both our first culture (Canadian) and our second culture (Haitian) are surprised to see us still nursing at age 3, we are happy that we are able to live out our instincts and ignore what doesn't seem to make sense to our instincts. We ENCOURAGE all Mamas to do the same (trust your instincts) whether it's nursing or bottle-feeding or writing post-modern lullabies. And we hope that both in Canada and Haiti that breastfeeding will be more and more encouraged and the breast will be celebrated for it's LIFE and HEALTH giving POWER above all.
EdG

The Birth

Friday morning, October 10th. Last prenatal visit with the AMAZING Stephanie!
We're not sure if it was the cervix massage or this...
that made Niko decide to start coming out

Labour started at around 6:15 PM. We were in the pool at the Kinam Hotel, just a regular Friday afternoon : )

Back at home contractions felt pretty good on all fours giving Gabriela the opportunity to ride me like a horse. We all stuffed her suitcase full of who knows what and she happily bounced out of the door with Alexis, Ben, Sharon, and Bryan. Thank you friends!!!!
The midwives arrived before 9 PM and then Hillary the photographer. I was like "who are these people in hospital scrubs?" and then I was like "ow ow owwwwwww! ow".
Labour was 13 hours including 2 short walks outside, but mostly in the bedroom which is really normal: in the closet, shower, toilet, on the ball, leaning on the change table, on the bed, at the other wall, trying to move my hips, killing mosquitoes between contractions (not so normal) and trying to embrace the next wave. That's a nice way of saying I fought like crazy, learned to breath, stroked the wall, yelled bloody murder, pushed, and then went back to contraction when we realized he wasn't down yet!!!!! (at 4 AM). We had a great time remembering all the hilarious things I said (not that I remembered : ) including "Come on Stephanie, this is RIDICULOUS!", "Okay, just kill me now!" and "I need an...epid-opisomy!" and others that I won't mention here. Our neighbours across the way only came over twice to ask if they could bring us to the hospital (hee hee). This morning I heard myself tell Matt about the pain: "like a machine gun 2 cm from my lower abdomen with endless bullets...pow...pow...pow." Niko's heart beat like a galloping horse during all but the second last push when Stephanie slipped her fingers beside his head, massaging it gently and the little horse was back.

I didn't know who was where when but everyone was exactly where I needed them. I could not have done it without everyone! PAIGE, doula at age 14, brought hot and ice cold compresses somehow simultaneously from the kitchen to my belly or back. Her Mom, TARA Livesay, arrived from running her first marathon in Minnesota five days earlier raising $62,000 for Medika Mamba which makes enriched peanut for growing Haitians, slept on the living room floor between contractions and prayed during them. BETH McHoul, 19+ years working with women in Haiti, training to be a midwife at age 56 not to mention running marathons, offered boundless encouragement especially "you're almost there" "you're so close" which is so very Haitian whether you are five minutes or five hours from the destination; Hillary held my hand, made coffee, brought ice and drinks, reminded me to breath and somehow also took all kinds of gorgeous photos (most of those featured here). Matt, ever present, laughed, breathed, massaged, and yelled, and breathed, and started all over with me, helped catch the blood, cried, AND CUT THE CORD,

and cried some more

and hasn't stopped cleaning, cooking, hosting, and getting me ice drinks since.

Stephanie, I don't have the words for Stephanie. At age 32, 300 births under her belt, 3 weeks in Haiti, stayed up all night doing everything, never short on suggestions even if I refused all of them. She even let me bribe her...she would say: "let's have two more contractions and then stand up"...and I would say "if you let me stay here in this position, I'll do nipple stimulation (which naturally speeds up contractions), I PROMISE!" (I HATED nipple stimulation b/c i hated making those bullets come even faster). And when I decided to take a "nap" at 4 AM instead of pushing Niko out, she was like "okay, sure, no problem" and she got nice and relaxed on the bed for a little siesta (until my next contraction : ) and she went with me, with us all the way until 7:19. When I began pushing she expertly broke all the membranes (my water did not break on it's own after 12 hours) and massaged every single millimetre open with a little olive oil and breathed with me to prevent serious tears of that little opening as it slowly, gently stretched to fit the 14 cm head.

After all that, they handed me the baby and instead of reaching for the baby, I reached between his legs exclaiming "he has a penis!" and then looked at his hands to see if he had six fingers and finally if he had a tattoo of Tabasco on him because I generally drown my food in the stuff.

Stephanie in the meantime, jumped in the shower to wash up and then pulled up a chair and threaded her needle.


Niko was Stephanie's first white baby delivery (the first 300 babies were Filipino where Stephanie completed her training) and go figure here in Haiti! So far, Niko is rather Haitian, coming out 10 days after the "date" and super chill, not to mention surviving the Tabasco so far. (We have been waking up in the night to wake him up!!!!!) He's just a little longer than the average Haitian babe but we DO see big babies born here come out already looking around!

BIG sister Gigi showed up in the morning...I LOVE this picture!

As for me, I'm just peachy! Really not tired and the tears (3) were very small and superficial. I did have an awfully sore tailbone but now I can sit up kind of : ) and today I started feeling the loss of blood which was over 2 pints. This morning I couldn't figure out how to spell anything, like "chich pea" or "we are hear" and momentarily couldn't see the computer screen at all, but water and the neighbour's Haitian chicken soup (liver!!!!) are working magic and avocados and grilled fish, and more avocados, and honey from Dezam, not to mention watercress, rice & bean sauce, mangoes, watermelon (yum yum) are helping me through. I am only mentioning half of the miracles that happened! But alas, this is a miracle that happens everyday and we are crazy blessed to have experienced every second of it.

Our neighbours who share and own our house were SOOOO quiet! and didn't come over once during labour. But their ears were pressed to the walls as they tracked the stages of labour. And after they met him, they spent the weekend, making soup, changing our sheets, washing diapers, fetching water, ice, avocadoes etc. If we ask them to buy oranges, they've already made the juice. Praise God! 300 cheers for Haiti and Haitian hospitality. Seriously I'm blown away! Thank you Madame Léon, Carlo, Simeon, MaryJo, Mammi...

okay must go...I started this post at 8 AM...Niko's doing a sleep marathon...Matt made solar food...G and M washed diapers after school...but the internet is the internet here and our photos were big.

LOVE LIFE LAUGH, EAT SPINACH


photos by Hillary Prag, Samurah, Matt Van Geest

Hi EVERYONE !

A couple pieces of exciting news to share with you or our expanding adventures!

It's OCTOBER meaning less of these








PRAISE GOD!

I met with SuperMIDWIFE Stephanie and Beth again on Friday! We felt the baby this time lower and also positioned like this (and this time not wearing any clothes ( :


ANTERIOR! ANTERIOR! ANTERIOR!

That means the










that i've been doing has been working!
Isn't that a miracle and at the same time SOOO obvious. (To get technical, the midwife prescribed 1 hour of hula-hooping ON-ALL-FOURS so that the spine- the heaviest part of the baby- would drop down! Anterior is when the baby's spine and back of head is at the front of the belly and the babe's face is facing my spine.) I loved the hula-hooping so much that i was disappointed when she said i can STOP now that the babe is in the "PERFECT POSITION". It is has also given me a fabulous labouring position! MESI STEPHANIE!!!

So the "due date" has come and gone. We celebrated and prepared with some more HENNA.














Thank you HILLARY
for sharing our weekend and taking gorgeous photos!!!!

The midwives say, NO PROBLEMO if baby-o doesn't come out until October 15th. (This is because "due-dates" are usually based on a 28-day cycle which some women have and many don't...AND...statistically most first bio-babies are born in the 41st week of pregnancy.) However we have started and re-instated some natural forces of encouraging the little one out of the WOMB including:
SEX, herbal tea, and our regular homework (practice breathing). Please join me/us by doing any of the above because they are great for all of us and ESPECIALLY drinking some water with me because I'm having a hard time still drinking enough WATER. Cheers!
And thank you for joining us virtually, spiritually, physically on this journey!
E & M & G & Ti Bump