An Other-Worldly Day

Today was not what we'd call normal, not for you, not even for me! Today started pretty normal: church, lunch, home. And then 3 seconds after we got home we get called to a birth! Which is good.
Alma is already far along, and has her baby at 1:45pm - a beautiful, wide-eyed boy (which is what she wanted). And we look at her belly and go - wait a second, that is still too big and firm. Yes, you called it - TWINS!! Surprise twins at that!
Basically twins are against the rules for midwives, mostly because so much can go wrong with the delivery of the second baby. So if we diagnose twins during pregnancy we have to refer mom to a doc. In this case we had not detected a second baby, and most of our patients don't get ultrasounds, cause they're expensive.
So imagine the shock and adrenaline that the discovery made! Both babies were head down (bum up), and both were born without problems, two healthy, full-size baby boys; Joseph and Yosuah! Dad was not present for the birth, so when he arrived after both boys were out, he was whooping, massively grinning, high-fiving and repeating "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" It was pretty fun!
But then, as soon as Alma was stable, three of us had to leave to attend the funeral of little baby Rylyn. So we changed our clothes and changed our moods and went to the public cemetary. A place where graves are stacked haphazardly on top of each other, just so many cement mounds, rising and falling in ranges. A place where squatters build homes, and sari-sari's over graves, and where children grow up. I can't describe how sad a place it is, there is just nothing sacred about that resting place. The funeral was just one tiny coffin placed into a cement hole, covered and then cemented in. No words were spoken, except by the drunk grandfather making jokes. Watching the process my insides began to panic, how can a loved one be cemented into such an unholy place? The poor mother and father watched quietly, and then we all left.
We returned to Alma and her boys, and spent a couple more hours with her, leaving her in the care of Gerlene at the clinic. And that was today. Two births and a funeral. Emotions across the spectrum, the reality of life here.