The many faces of Clara

Our little one is already beginning to express her personality...through a wide variety of facial expressions!

Hmmm...

Mischevious

Asleep and Angelic

ANGRY!

Just plain beautiful.


Love from San Lucas, Dan, Lois and Clarita

More Pictures of Clara

Family Photo
Clara gets plenty of "tummy time" when she is awake and is able to turn her head from one side to the other.

Ummm...not sure why this photo is upside-down...but I'm not awake enough to figure out how to rotate it. Clara loves sleeping in her touchdown pose in her little drawer-bed. (She, like her parents, supports the Cyclones even when they lose a lot.) You can see her mosquito net pushed off to the side.

Hospital Band - "Soy Idiota"

Hospital Staff Picnic

We had a blast a few weeks ago at the hospital picnic. It was the first ever staff picnic in celebration of September 4th, the "Day of the Healthcare Provider" here in Guatemala. We drove half an hour to a park/chalet to celebrate. There was a big outdoor pavilion with a built in rock oven to grill all the meat. We spent the first part of the afternoon playing relay games, like passing an orange to the next person in line with only your chin, or carrying spoons in our mouth to fill a glass of water, or the classic spin your head on a soccer ball and then try to run back after you are dizzy. We finished with a great game of soccer.

After the games the hospital band grabbed their instruments and serenaded us with a variety of popular songs, including an adapted one called "El hospital" set to the music of a different song but with lyrics written by the band to make fun of all the staff at the hospital. Later we ate an amazing dinner or chicken, beef, intestines, liver, and kidney. I wasn't brave enough to try the kidney, but everything was amazing. We also had Guacamole, refried beans, sodas, and wine. The night ended with speeches of thanks and excitement for the coming year at the hospital. We are so grateful for our co-workers, their fun attitudes, and their patience with us as we learn and fuddle about. It was an amazing night.

Pictures!

Clara Maria

It is will great pleasure that we announce the birth of Clara Maria Fulton. She was born September 14th at 9:45 on a rainy Sunday evening. She weighed 7lbs 8ozs and was 19.5inches long. She is beautiful and most people have said she looks like her mother.

Lois actually had told me 20 hours earlier that she had just had a contraction that was somewhat uncomfortable. She had been having painless contractions for weeks, but at 2AM on Sunday she had her first "real" one. By 6AM they were coming every 3 minutes or so, but what we didn't realize was that we had a long way to go and they were to get much much stronger. We called Dr. Tun at home and he met us at the hospital at 7AM. He told us to come back at noon. We spent the morning breathing through the contractions, applying counter pressure, and walking. We even played some cribbage! At noon he told us to come back at 4PM. We were a little disappointed that more progress hadn't been made. Lois also seemed to be experiencing a strange phenomenon that when she laid down her contractions stop, so we spent the rest of the day sitting or standing. By 4 the contractions were incredibly strong and long. When we went back to the hospital again, this time Dr. Tun told us to stay. By 7pm Lois started to feel like pushing, and a very intense 3 hours later little Clara made her grand entrance to the world. We were so excited she was out that we forgot to check if she was a little boy or girl for several minutes!

My major feeling on the day, other than unspeakable exhiliration and joy was the strength and courage Lois had throughout her labor. I don't think I will ever really understand what it feels like or means to go through labor, but I do know that Lois is amazing and now that its over, we have both agreed we wouldn't trade it for anything.

There are too many details from the day to recount, but just a few more: After Clara was born I got up from behind Lois to go meet her. She immediately pooped all over my shirt. "Nice to meet you too!" The hospital administrator Pablo Benedicto had come that night when he heard Clara was on her way. He had a clean Guatemalan National Team soccer jersey which he gave me to wear instead of messy shirt. When I tried to return the jersey a few days later he said, "Please keep it as a gift to remember the birth of your daughter in Guatemala." Another story, after we had gotten cleaned up a bit after the birth, Emi Tun, Dr. Tun's wife, had also come. She brought with her some piping hot chocolate, a Guatemalan tradition, for us all to toast the birth of Clara.

My final feeling on the day is the overwhelming sense that God was present and supporting us through it all. Whether it was through the energy he gave Lois to sustain through so many contractions, or through the calm presence of Lois' Mom, or through the perfectly timed and rejuvinating arrival of Flori our favorite nurse who for some unknown reason had decided to call the clinic that night to see if we were there. When she found out that we were she came immediately and arrived just as Lois felt she had no energy left to begin the final 3 hours of pushing. Or in the patient presence of Steve, another volunteer, who did all our driving for the day, and refused to leave even when there was nothing left to do but wait for hours and hours. Or the prayers and encouraging phone calls with family so far away. Or perhaps in the many calming and reassuring Church songs we would sing to regain our composure between contractions. And while I think whatever might have happened would have been exactly as God would have wanted, we can only give our deepest thanks that here in this place, without technology or advanced medical care, where we needed everything to go normally without complications, it did. Now I look across the room at Lois rocking Clara to sleep and realize this is only the beginning. We know God's love and support will continue through the hands, prayers, and love of family and friends. Thank you to everyone for your help along the way. We couldn't have done it without you.

Much love,

Dan, Lois, and Clara

No baby yet!

Just in case anyone has been waiting and watching for an update as anxiously as we have been waiting for our little one to arrive, there's no baby here yet. However, Lois' mom is here, which is exciting. She arrived on Saturday and has been a great sport about orienting to San Lucas and helping us get ready for having a newborn in the house. Hopefully we will have an announcement soon!!!

A Work Day

Life here overall is really good. Fr. Greg has developed an organization that is run by Guatemalans and then American volunteers can come down and fit in where they can, but the main focus is on learning as opposed to "helping". There really isn't much Americans can do that the Guatemalans can't do better, faster, and with fewer resources. Their hospitality to us has been amazing and we are grateful to be here. A typical day for us is to wake up around 6 and get ready for the day. At 7 we head down to the Parish for coffee and breakfast. By 8:30 we are up at the clinic getting ready to start the day. I see inpatients with Dr. Tun while Lois starts seeing physical therapy patients. After inpatients, we visit the new babies and new moms, then to the ER to see if there's anything big going on there, and then to the consult clinic where Dr. Tun sees 10-15 patients and I see 5-10 patients in the morning. We give numbers to the first 15 folks who show up - then after we finish with them, its kind of first come first serve. The reason for that is that if you get a number, the price is discounted. It provides an avenue for poorer folks to come early, get more complete care, plus the discount. People with a number pay roughly 50 cents for the visit, and then buy their medicines at cost. People without a number pay around 7 US dollars, and buy their medicines at a little bit higher price. People can also choose not to wait at all and go straight to the ER (much like the US) but the price there ranged from 10-15 US dollars. People who show up early get a number and as a result get their chart from chart room with all their other records. They also get their vitals taken before they see us. People that just wait without a number show up without any charts and no vitals so its a little more challenging to understand the full story. People can also choose to go to one of the private clinics in town, but ours is the only facility that is open 24 hours a day and weekends. Our most busy days are Mondays and Fridays because of the weekend, and then Tuesdays, because it is a market day. Wednesdays and Thursdays are a little quieter, so we spend more time working on development projects. Some of these projects are: preparation materials for medical groups, medical presentations for promoters or hospital staff, and medicine storage organization.

We are enjoying the people and the work as well as learning more every day about the culture, language, and just medicine in general. We hope in the coming days we'll get to keep learning and fitting in where we can.

***The picture is of Dr. Tun. He has been the hospital physician for about 10 years and it is clear he is well respected in the community. He has been a really supportive mentor for us both.***