The Life of a Mother of 15
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2011
1
56
73
Trip End
Dec 14, 2011
Palo, Leyte, Philippines
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday evening I spent my second night in the nursery. With all the babies healthy enough to stay in the nursery, Juliet and I were left being dual mothers of 15 babies. I arrived to silence around 9 pm, the jeepneys were again very slow, even Juliet was fast asleep. I laid down and fell asleep in a couple minutes, as I wasn't able to nap Thursday afternoon. At around 10:15 I was awakened for the first time by Jonathan needing his diaper changed and his bottle reset. Then his neighbor, the little monkey, began to cry for a bottle as well. That was only the beginning of a night filled with tandem crying. At least every half hour thereafter two of the babies would begin crying, needing the usual diaper change or bottle. Juliet was in a very deep sleep I figured out by 1 am, when I realized i was the only one waking up. Luckily there were no vomiting incidences and i only had to change two of the babies sheets throughout the night. At 2:15 I woke up for good. As I changed the diaper of one of the twins, Jasmine jumped out of her crib and ran to my side yelling and wanting a playmate. I spoke to her in waray repeatedly telling her to it was time to sleep and she needed to be quiet. She got in her crib finally, mumbling a song to herself. But at 3 am neither of us had fallen back asleep and it was time to wake up.
While Juliet removed the mosquito nets and washed the bottles, I put all the infants on a mat on the floor and then proceeded to clean their beds. Slowly the older babies woke up and stared sleepy eyed at me while I worked. When I finished with the infants bedding Juliet began bathing them one by one. In the mean time I made up 15 bottles, dressed the clean ones, and tucked them back in with their breakfast. When we finished with the little ones the big boys came next. There are 5 boys between 17 and 22 months who are obviously much bigger and older than all the babies. The noise level increased as we began bathing them, mostly due to jealousy among them..they all wanted to be held and given their bottles first. Once bathtime finished they all calmed down a bit, some drifting back to sleep while others enjoyed some morning cuddles.
At 6:45 am I headed home, after eating some breakfast with the older kids. I got home and fell asleep around 8. Then woke up around 10:30 unable to sleep anymore. In some respects i enjoy working the nightshift over the day shift. But I can't see myself doing continuous night shifts without going a bit crazy because of odd sleeping patterns. I'm going to do a few more before Ii leave though.
Elsa
