Dukan Update

Been a busy 24 hours and wanted to get a post out before bed.
Weight: 149, bloated and well, more on that later in the post.

I have a wonderful midwifery student with me here in China, Aisha Al Hajjar. Aisha is from the States, but is married to a lovely Saudi man and has 8 kids! I met her in the UAE last year when she came to interview me about water birth at my previous hospital job.

At the end of the day yesterday (433 pm to be precise), my personal assistant came to let us know that there was a lady in labor wanting a normal birth, so upstairs we went to the birth room. First time momma and she had her baby at 533 pm… Nice, quick, fast and an easy delivery. Here’s the little guy a few minutes after I caught him…

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Today was packed with working on skills that Aisha needs to do for school and working on a PowerPoint presentation about International Standards of Care. I started my day out with a yummy breakfast…

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I am in Consolidation and I’m eating more Paleo like. Still low carb, but added fat. This is pork chunks, onion and garlic powder. Two eggs fried with low fat mozzarella. I cooked it in Macadamia oil… Mmmmm!

I’ve only run twice in the past week. It is very difficult to do in a city of 17 million! Too many people milling about, but I’ve made sure I walk 5K every night. I also haven’t had any yogurt with flaxseed meal (I use that instead of oat bran, zero net carbs, 4g fiber per tsp, same as oat bran but has a nice nutty taste). Anyway, I’ve been a bit bitchy grumpy the last few days, as I’ve been gassy (never gassy on Dukan!!!) and the plumbing isn’t working as per usual. You can’t buy yogurt here in China at the shops and I usually get it in Hong Kong, but I haven’t had the time to go down there.

So today I kind of barked at asked Rose, my amazing personal assistant here in Guangzhou to find me a western grocery store!!! So off I went on the subway to find The Corner’s Deli (yes apostrophe s) in the basement of the Citic building. The kind customer service desk girl pointed the way. Through that door, turn right, go downstairs to BM Street… LOL, BM Street?!? I was sure I heard her wrong… Well, actually…

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So off I go, down this quiet stairway and find myself dead end at a Chinese restaurant! I point, I show them the name and address and they take me through the restaurant to an underground shopping mall… It was bizarre! But, tucked around the winding walkway, all the way in the back was a western grocery with FAT FREE GREEK YOGURT!!! And COTTAGE CHEESE!!! AND SALAMI!!!! And MOVIE THEATRE POPCORN, EXTRA BUTTER!!!! Ok, I bought ONE package of that, for my celebration meal on Sunday 🙂 I thought I’d died and gone to heaven… A REAL grocery store!

So I’ve just gotten back from dinner at my favorite Arabic restaurant and dished up a plate of that yogurt with a Splenda and flaxseed… My tummy will be happy again!

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And yes, I eat my yogurt with chopsticks… I’m in china 😀

Parting shot… This afternoon I shot a commercial for the hospital to promote water birth. They even recruited one of our nearly due patients! What fun. I decided I wanted to get a shot of one of the camera people…

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Exciting life I lead… Ciao!

Water Birth in China

Just attended the first water birth at the hospital in Guangzhou. First baby for this couple.

I love when I can see birth workers grow and learn to trust birth and it’s process. This lady only had two internal exams, one on admission this morning and another in the afternoon around 4 pm. She was 5 cms and transferred to the water birth room.

At 5 pm she was singing the loudest, sweetest birth song and holding onto me for dear life. One of the midwives wanted to check her, I said no, let’s watch what happens and 23 minutes later her sweet baby slipped gently into my hands and up to her chest. She and her husband cocooned with the baby and there wasn’t a peep out of anyone in the room. I think they were all stunned 🙂

Days like this I love my vocation. Funny thing, as I was changing into scrubs I had a fleeting thought that I was too old for this… Now I’m going out to run! LOL

Ciao!