“All my research from the very beginning of my career has always focused on health issues, women's health issues, or infant health issues,” Kelly said. “Before I came to K-State I was a doula. A doula is a step below a midwife. We can do everything but deliver the baby.”

 

Helping others is Kelly’s passion. She’s helped in the delivery of over 300 babies! That should speak for itself. Now, Kelly expands her love and skills beyond the United States border.

 

“What I’m trying to do is start clinics in dive areas,” Kelly said. “We know that we have wealthy people who are wealthy enough to come and dive at these beautiful resorts, so they can bring donations to these resorts and they can be distributed.”

 

Although she loves being here in Manhattan and having her family and grandchildren near, her heart is still in those small, sleepy towns she could not stop talking about: Roatan and Cozumel.

 

“The goal is to reduce the transmission of HIV through breastfeeding,” Kelly said. “We teach them to make bottles. […] They don’t have the extra money to buy a baby bottle. That would be a luxury.”

 

In our culture, we don’t think twice about buying a bottle or making baby formula. Yet, in these areas, there is no refrigeration, no purified water, and no money for these mothers, so it is far more of a challenge than you can imagine. Particularly, the Mayan culture is more than 5,000 years old and Kelly says it is certainly still alive and holding dear to their traditions.

 

“They’re precious people,” Kelly said. “Women still give birth on dirt floors or in hammocks.” She chuckles about how she would have never been able to fare that situation. “Watching a Mayan woman give birth, it fascinates me!”

 

Kelly has a plethora of stories about people she has met. Such as a heart-wrenching story about a three year old boy who went to the beach, set up sticks in the sand, and placed a blanket over them so he had a place to sleep after he was done fishing for his dinner that night. Most Americans can hardly fathom a thought of living like that. For many, what we need to survive we either already have or are able to get it when we do need it.

 

While Kelly is at these clinics, she assists with labor and delivery of children as well as assisting in the care of sick or dying babies.

 

“There is no such thing as too much. The need is too great,” Kelly said. “We’re in constant need of infant formula, Tylenol drops, and baby bottles.”

 

Kelly and Dave had plans to retire to Cozumel someday because they were avid beach-goers and scuba divers. Yet, they didn’t plan to live an overly glamorous lifestyle. Kelly knew she had to stay near to these clinics that are so dear to her heart.

 

“One thing I have learned: I don’t speak a word of Spanish,” Kelly said. “Caring for a sick or ailing mother or baby is the same in any language.”

 

Story after story, Kelly talks about a world where help is always desperately needed. What she has realized is that she is still blessed and lives in a much more fair world than those she helps in the Caribbean.

“Who am I to say life is unfair?” Kelly said. “Yeah my husband died in a car wreck and yeah I wanted more years with him, but I thought: this is unfair. Living like this is unfair. Having four blankets as a wall and waiting two hours for infant Tylenol drops.”

 

Now, reflecting on her past, present, and future, Kelly see’s that her life has made a full circle and has realized this is what she is meant to do.

 

“It’s kind of full circle,” Kelly said. “It’s symbolizes me having my children, then I delivered children, then I came to the University and taught people how to be parents, and now I’m back working with parents of dying children and dying parents. So it really symbolizes my entire essence of who I am.”