Wham, bam thank you ma'am

Another 2 births occurred on our watch yesterday. To say it was craziness is a huge understatement. We called in first thing in the morning to find out if anyone was in labour, and were told that there was someone in the early stages of active labour so we made our way in.
When we arrived at The Rand there were 5 women in the labour ward! Keep in mind they only have 4 beds. One of them was a "grand multip", so named because this was her 9th pregnancy (at 27 years old). 3 or 4 of the others weren't actually in labour but were there to be assessed for various reasons. There is only 1 nurse/midwife assigned to that part of the maternity ward so she was busy and happy to see us. Then she disappeared down the hallway for a minute to grab something and said she would be right back...
We turned around and all of a sudden from out of nowhere was a pregnant and obviously labouring mom in a wheelchair. I knelt down in front of her to get some information from her - I found out her name, she didn't know when her due date was (eek), I asked her if she had seen any doctors in her pregnancy and she said no (EEK). I thought she must be confused or not understand my accent so I asked for her passport (that's what they call the prenatal record that all the pregnant moms have a copy of with them) and her friend gave me her Haitian passport. So truly she had had no prenatal care - wow! And then her waters broke and they weren't clear so that can mean the baby is not happy - yikes. At that point I'm wondering where I'm supposed to assess this woman given all the beds are full... but then the nurse reappeared and we found a bed in the next hallway. Off come the pants (never wear tight pants in labour!) and she was checked - fully dilated. OK then I guess we are having a baby of unknown gestational age today! The nurse went down the hallway to set up the delivery room and Jen went out in the hallway to grab some clean gloves. Thank goodness she did because I looked down and could see a baby's head - yikes! OK I guess we are having a baby of unknown gestational age with meconium and no resuscitation gear right here, right now... and then we did. We knew nothing about this woman other than her name, no bloodwork, no history, nothing. She had a 9lb girl who came out screaming in spite of all of the chances that things could have been so different. Intense.
Shortly after that our mom with the many children gave birth...a silent labourer so that was interesting to watch. It was nice to see how much she obviously loved her 6th little boy.
We felt we should reward ourselves after our 7th birth in 3 days and drove to Our Lucaya, a tourist area and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and crazy limbo show...we are very happy that we feel like locals now and not tourists...a good plan to keep the preying men away!!