The Miracle of Life!

Today I had my clinical on the Labor and Delivery floor of the hospital and got to see something I had never seen before....a birth! Well, actually I got to see three births! The first one was a cesarean and the other two happened the old fashioned way. At 7 am I met up with my first nurse of the day and she was prepping a patient for her c-section. We got all her paper work ready and then wheeled her off to the operating room. I saw the anesthesiologist give the epidural and she even pulled out the catheter a little so I could see the spinal fluid....it was crazy. I can understand why spinal taps hurt so much now. I mean this was a tiny woman about to have her baby and the needle was HUGE.

Things progressed pretty rapidly after that. The doctor and the nurses put up the sterile draping and then started cutting with the scalpel through all the layers...Yucky and kinda cool at the same time. Then all the amniotic fluid gushed out and it was kinda green (from the meconium) and definitely gross. But then the doctor reached in and pulled out the little alien head and suctioned out her nose and mouth and pulled the rest of her out and she cried and it happened! A little tiny person was born right in front of me! It was so...weird. The nurses grabbed her and put her under the warmer and started to wipe her down. I was standing off to the side with this guy from my class and I probably was annoying him because every time something happened I was yanking on his sleeve going "Did you see that!!!" and he was like, um, yeah I'm standing right here or something. I'm not exactly sure what he said because I was too busy freaking out, especially when the doctor took out the mom's uterus to stitch it up. Uh, hello, the doctor was sewing up the mom's uterus OUTSIDE her body! Doesn't anyone else think that is cool?!? The doctor didn't seem to think it was any big deal. He just kept on talking away about his kid's college picks or some random crap. I was thinking to myself how if I were having my child essentially cut out of my body, how I would not want to hear the stupid doctor talking about random crap. I would want the Beatles playing or the Hallelujah chorus or Diana Ross singing "Baby Love" or I'd even pick total silence over this doctor's annoying chatter (maybe Scientologists are on to something).

So, yeah, that's why it was so weird for me. I mean here was THE MIRACLE OF LIFE right in front of me and it was so not a big deal for everyone around. After they tagged the baby and the mom and the dad, they wheeled the baby off to the nursery and I hung around with the mom. My nurse and I eventually (when she was all sewn up) took the mom off to the recovery room and got her all cleaned up and ready for her to see the baby and try to feed her. Um, yeah, another weird experience--watching a complete stranger attempt to breast feed her hour old baby. HELLO UNCOMFORTABLE! Not that watching someone I knew would have been better, but whatever, I pretended to be okay. So, after that I did some more paper work with that nurse and she took me to go look at the placenta, which they saved especially for me to look at. ICK!!! Anyone ever see the Matrix? Yeah, that was my first thought. Anyways, that was the first half of my day.

I ran off to get some quick lunch before I got to see another wonderful event (sarcasm implied)....CIRCUMCISION. That's right! I got to see a day old baby boy get circumcised. Yeah, this is going to have to be a topic for a later post because I have a lot to say about that one.

Anyway, after the circumcision, I met up with my second nurse of the day who was with a first time mom in the delivery room. We were monitoring her and recording things every fifteen minutes. Once this particular mother got her epidural she was pretty hilarious. She had friends and family in and out and we were all just chilling. She was only progressing about a centimeter an hour, which I'm told is normal, especially for a first time mom. Because not much was happening with this mom, my nurse snuck me in to see a couple of her neighbors pop out their kids.

I walked in the next room just as this mom was putting her legs up. HELL-O. I'm sure the look on my face was just priceless. I am a face maker. I can't help it. I think it's in my genes or something (thanks Grandma Caroline). I couldn't NOT cringe. First of all, there were like TWENTY people in the room staring at this poor woman's special place...including her dad and FATHER IN LAW. NO THANK YOU!! Second of all....OUCH! I could feel my face twisting up. I was thinking to myself..."AHHHHH!!! NOOOOO!!!" I was totally crossing my legs even though I was standing up. This was not good. Everytime the mom pushed things started to stretch out a little and then she stopped pushing and things went back up a little. Man, this was painful...and I was just watching, literally with one eye open. Eventually the baby came out and the dad cut the umbilical cord and the nurse took the baby and wiped it down and it was cute. It even had some weird little toes which totally came from it's dad....(yeah, hi, I will never be wearing FLIP FLOPS in a delivery room--MAJOR GROSS).

I went back to hang out with my nurse and my patient was only dilated to a six and when I walked into the room a new friend was there and was like, "Oh good! The doctor's here!" Which made me laugh right out loud. Even though, I totally could have done what that guy just did in the other room....except for the whole staring into someone's crotch. Okay, nevermind I couldn't have done it. Whatever, it just goes to show you what wearing scrubs can do for you!

At this point, another lady was about to start pushing down the hall, so I went off to see my third birth of the day. And it made me think of an episode of FRIENDS. You know the one where Rachel is having Ross's baby and all the mom's that come in after her have their babies before her?!! You know the one I'm talking about, right???!! So, I left my patient again and snuck into another delivery room. This mom was a second time mom and in a matter of minutes the babies' head was out. And it was HUGE. Yes, I had the face AGAIN! I couldn't help it!! In fact, I can't not do it now, just writing this! The doctor had to do some wiggling because the shoulders wouldn't come out. OWW!! But then it did come out and the crowd in this room all cheered! Which was pretty cool, I'll admit. After my experiences today, I have decided that I will not be an OB or L&D nurse. Sure, everyone thinks being an OB nurse would be so much fun. Hanging out with the new moms, taking care of the little babies, being surrounded by all the excitement and happiness and love. But no one ever thinks about what a mom will push out along with the baby or the fact that you have to WATCH it all happen. Yeah, this is definately not for me. Oh and by the way, I love you all, but if I ever get the chance to have my own babies, NONE of you are invited to watch. Sorry.

Here is a picture related to my day....notice the face I'm making in this picture! HA!