Send You all Stars in the Sky

I would like to share this scary experience that I had last March 7-8, 2013. I was close to giving birth then, and we have been inside the clinic for four days.

They had three small rooms there for those who are giving birth. It was tight, and the only furniture that fit there was a single bed and three plastic chairs. My husband and I occupied one room, and the other two were empty.

Then a pregnant woman went in and asked for a check-up. We caught a bit of their conversation, not because we intended to eavesdrop, but because the clinic wasn’t large, and the walls of the rooms were thin. The midwife told the woman to go home, walk around a bit and come back in the morning the next day.

However, the woman couldn't wait until tomorrow to get herself admitted. That night, she came back, along with her husband and her grandmother. The woman was young; I believe she was still around 18 years old.

So it was now noisy, and the people were now moving around outside. My husband and I weren’t able to get back to sleep because of it, and we simply listened to them as if we were listening to a radio show.

Then suddenly the power went out. There were emergency lights in the clinic, but there were only two of them outside our rooms, and the rest were in the delivery room. A few minutes passed, then someone screamed in utter fright! The midwife's assistant said that she saw something by the window.

The door was in between two windows with jalousie glass. There was apparently a dark-skinned person who peeked in. The assistant wasn’t able to see the face of the person, but she did see their eyes. The midwife stopped the assistant from saying any more, because obviously, it wasn't the right time to scare anyone.

I couldn't explain what I felt that night. There was fear, but there was also worry and concern, just like in another story that was told in the group about aswang. The aswang is our local version of the vampires of old and they are known to favor unborn and newly born babies.

As a mother, there's a feeling burning inside me that will fight anything because you wanted to protect your baby. My husband and I now turned on both our phones' flashlights as if expecting something or someone to attack.

It was soon the middle of the night, and the pregnant lady was crying because her abdomen was already aching. It was noisy inside the clinic, but we could clearly hear a cat's loud meowing. It was just outside the window and was also making so much noise.

I honestly didn't like what I was feeling back then and my arm hairs were now all standing up.

They already took the young lady to the delivery room. As I mentioned just earlier, there were also emergency lights there. The midwife also had all the equipment for helping someone give birth in that room.

Then someone screamed again.

They said that there was a large cockroach inside the room. Like, absolutely black, and not brown like the usual roaches you see at home. They made a ruckus inside and started to attempt smacking the pest until it went out of the room.

I invited my husband to pray with me. We prayed and prayed, not only for us and our baby but also for the other woman, who was now giving birth, and her baby.

We could hear that she was having a hard time pushing the baby out. The woman was already being scolded by the midwife since she wasn’t listening or following what she was being told to do. It continued until we heard it had become an actual emergency.

There was a problem with the child. It was already blackened when it came out. The child was now dead. I couldn't help but cry my eyes out at the news.

When everything had already quieted down, I think the lady had already fallen asleep then; we heard the conversation between the midwife and the grandmother…

The grandmother said that she knew it would happen. She had a dream some time before where she saw that her granddaughter had given birth and the child was already dead when it came out. It seemed that all of the first-born children in their family die, taken by the ones that come after them.

The midwife couldn't believe what just happened either. The child was still moving inside the lady's womb the last time she checked, and that was earlier in the day. The heartbeat was okay as well.

She also couldn't believe that there was a cockroach in the delivery room since they cleaned it every day. It was their first ever one inside that room. It was large and black.

That was also their first death in their clinic. The midwife was well known in our area since she was good at maneuvers, and even if the position wasn't favorable at first, she could get the baby out via a normal delivery.

And yet, here was a baby dead while in her care.

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Even though the clinic just experienced a death, we didn’t leave that place yet.

It was around early morning when everything became quiet. My sleep was on and off, and I was already experiencing a few contractions. The midwife doubled her efforts in attending to me and my husband. She didn't expect us to stay there despite what happened.

Maybe if it was someone else, they would have moved to another clinic or hospital because of fear. But then, my husband wasn't the type to allow himself to be intimidated. No matter what happened, he said that God was the one in charge of all of us.

For the entire day, the midwife regularly went inside the room in order to check my condition and record my baby's heartbeat. As for myself, I paid close attention to my child. She wasn’t moving that much, but I knew she was okay.

At around seven in the evening, the power cut off twice. It was a WTF moment for all of us back then. It was just like the other night.

Then the cat appeared again, making a loud noise. My husband got so irritated that he wanted to go outside and throw something at the cat.

All of us in the clinic were getting nervous, and the midwife was coming in at regular intervals to check on my condition. She was obviously fearful, tired, and short on sleep. I knew she didn't want a repeat of what happened last night. She even asked for help from another midwife and told her all about what happened the last time.

I started labor at around nine in the evening. Thank God that the power had already returned. My husband was also with me in the delivery room. The midwife allowed him inside as a bonus, so that he could also experience and witness my childbirth. He went through everything, and he didn't faint or anything like that.

Did you know that when my child came out, she wasn't crying? She was already smacked a few times on her butt, but she still didn't cry.