Hi Everyone,
Are you on Facebook? Did you know Glory Reborn is to?
Well for the next 18 days, Glory Reborn has a chance to win $250,000.00 in the Chase Community Giving contest. Just visit our page, add the application and vote for Glory Reborn!
Here is the link:
http://bit.ly/grchase
Thanks for the vote, and please spread the word to your friends!
Glory Reborn was recently visited by Meagen Kelly, a media fellow at Dekeyser & Friends. She produced a video on Inspiration and featured Glory Reborn, as well as a very dear friend of ours in Cebu, Father Heinze Kuluke. Please visit their site and watch the video. I hope you are all inspired by it!
On May 29, 2010, Glory Reborn hosted our 1st blood drive in partnership with the Philippine National Red Cross. We invited the relatives of our moms, local groups and churches to come out and donate blood to save lives. We were able to get 36 bags of blood donated!
A huge thanks to everyone who came out and donated.
Here is a short video of the event:
Life is in the Blood from David Overton on Vimeo.
At Glory Reborn, we see a majority of patients who have no other options during their pregnancy. Some come to us happy and jubilant, others come to us in tears and in dire situations. We are here to provide them with tangible healthcare that they can rely on, and for the majority of our patients, we try to give them at least a glimmer of hope before they leave.
We do however have limitations on the care that we can give and therefore we are caught in the reality of the developing world. In an ideal world, these women would have access to high-quality, affordable healthcare when they need procedures that we cannot provide. In this real world, they can only afford to be treated at the public hospital, which provides the best they can, however it is sub-par care. On a daily basis, we often have to deal with these situations and make decisions that involve the lives of our patients in the frustrating gray area between ideals and reality. We had one such situation this week.
A mom name Johna came to us during her pregnancy and was happy to be at Glory Reborn, however during her labor this past Friday we learned that the baby’s heartbeat showed decelerations below the normal range. This was manageable if there would be an improvement. However after close monitoring at the clinic there was not an improvement, so she needed to be transported. Hilary was with her and she called me and said, “David, we have this situation, what should we do?”. Which basically meant that we had to make a decision from the gray area, do we just let the hardship of reality take affect and have a negative outcome. Or do we intervene and hope that the patient as well as our charity program could cover the cost. Quite literally this mom’s and baby’s lives were in our hands, and a decision had to be made. We decided to go with our ideals and had the patient admitted to the private hospital. The family said they would try to pay and our doctor would not charge us, and we have a memorandum of understanding with the hospital in which all of our patients will get a discount.
Johna had a cesarian section and she was stable. However, after birth, the doctors noticed some problems with baby Kyle. He was quickly rushed into
the NICU, and his life was being supported by a ventilator. After an extensive workup he was diagnosed with a congenital pulmonary abnormality that was life threatening. Tragically, in spite of the best care that the doctors and hospital could provide, Kyle passed away Saturday night. Sometimes, even when we chose ideals, the reality still overwhelms the situation.
We share this story with you to give you a little glimpse into the situation that we face daily at Glory Reborn, but also a real glimpse the situation of Johna and a chance to respond. She has been through quite a bit, and our social worker and counselors are visiting her daily. She and her parents have raised as much money as they can, and we would like to ask for you help with this situation. After all the discounts and pro bono work from our doctor, due to Kyle’s complications the total due is nearly $2,500.00 We would like to share this financial burden with our patient, and would like to see if you would partner with us and with Johna in this very real and practical way.
Promote Healthy Pregnancy & Childbirth is in America’s Giving Challenge – Let’s win $50,000!
Hi everyone,
Our cause just entered in America’s Giving Challenge, which gives us a chance to win $50,000!
Please donate today: Glory Reborn – Causes
To win, between now and November 7th we have to get the most donations to our cause (every person can donate once per day and have it count as a unique donation). We can also win daily awards of $1,000 and $500 if we can get the most people to donate in any 24-hour period. The great thing about this Challenge is that it doesn’t matter how much you give, but instead how much you do to encourage friends and family to get involved in our cause. We all need to come together and start promoting the cause if we want to win.
Each of us has tons of friends on Facebook who we can ask to donate to our cause. But let’s think big toocan you put our cause in your email signature, can you throw a party and get people to donate through the cause when they enter, can you organize other people to go out and fundraise from all of their friends? As you reach out to your friends be sure to tell them why this cause matters to you. The possibilities are endless so let’s talk about what we can do to win on the Wall of the cause or by replying to this bulletin.
I think we can do it! But it’s going to take all of us. Check out the Giving Challenge ( www.causes.com ), then visit our cause to see how we’re doing so far and get involved.
Donate right now by going to Glory Reborn – Causes
Let’s win $50,000 for Glory Reborn Organization!
Earlier this week, we passed the milestone of 1,700 Healthy Babies born at Glory Reborn! We are all very excited about this and happy to see the joy in new life!
This month has been especially rewarding for Glory Reborn. We have now officially delivered over 1,600 newborns! My how time flies. As I was contemplating just how quickly time flies I remembered the very first baby I delivered on my own as a midwifery student in the year 2001. I still remember everything about that first miraculous and beautiful birth. The mother, Alona, father Sagred, and their precious baby Alexandria will never leave my mind. It was the moment I knew I wanted to deliver babies for the rest of my life. I was able to keep in touch with Alona and Alexandria throughout the years and in 2004 I had the honor of delivering Alona and Sagred’s next daughter, Alouisa. Another perfect delivery and wonderful moment that I felt blessed to share in. Now, 1,612 babies later I couldn’t have been more excited to see Alona, Sagred, Alexandria and Alouisa back at the clinic for a visit one day. We enjoyed reminiscing about each of their deliveries and discovered some great news……another little one is on the way. The two girls were ecstatic to watch the ultrasound monitor as we got our first look at the next little one to come. It gives me such joy to share in these amazing moments with this precious family. With Alexandria 8 years old and Alouisa 4, it hit me just how long I have been a midwife and just how many of these precious families I have gotten to watch grow up over the years. It was also a testimony to the care, love and safety that our patients feel at Glory Reborn as they trust us with the lives of their newborns and invite us to share in their significant moment. I am so grateful that Glory Reborn exists for families like Alona’s that can continue to come back to familiar faces and a safe place to deliver their next bundle of joy. Thank you to each of you for the support you have shown to me and Glory Reborn over oh so many years which makes it possible for families to keep growing with us. We and they are extremely thankful for you!
One of our favorite patients, Alona and her family
Happy New Year from Glory Reborn!
We have already started the new year with a bang: 3 babies have been born already in 2009 here at Glory Reborn and it is only 8:00 am on January 2nd!
It has been a wonderful two weeks at Glory Reborn Clinic as we have learned to use our ultrasound machine. We have been so blessed to have four wonderful sonographers from Hope Imaging come to teach our staff and myself the basics of obstetrical sonography. We have been able to practice our skills on over 50 moms already and have found out just how useful our new machine will be in dating pregnancies and checking for adequate amniotic fluid. We even discovered some exciting news that two of our staff members are also expecting their own little ones in January and April 2009.
Hi Everyone, I have some good news. You can now sign up to have a mothly donation on the Glory Reborn Site. Through PayPal, we can now do a recurring monthly payment, I have setup 4 amounts ($25-$100), and they can be found in our Online Shop.
Or you can select one from below:
