It's a baby!

I saw two babies delivered today. Even if I weren't so tired, I think words would be beyond me. But I think I do need to at least document it somehow, get my thoughts down, process it a little bit. So here's just my first rehash of the day.

All day I spent following my intern around like a shadow, doing nothing but watching, so when she got a call about some decelerations (slowing of fetal heart rate) in one of our patients, we went to go check it out. 25 minutes later, we had delivered a healthy baby boy by C-section. Everything moved so fast I tried not to get lost or stepped on or compromise the sterile field. Mom was crying. Even though she was a family practice resident, I think everything happened so fast that anyone would have been scared. "Tell my husband I love him" she said through tears right before she went under. And then we had 5 minutes before the anesthesia hit the baby. The second year threw me her ring and said "Give this to someone." Having heard the horror stories of wedding rings in laundry bins from discarded scrubs, I nonetheless tucked it away in my back pocket. There was a lot of blood; I was feeling the hurt mom would feel when she woke up. Halfway through, my senior got me a stool, knowing what it's like to be short. Thank you. When they pulled the head through, it didn't look human and the head was just flopping around. I was relieved when someone else said "That's a big baby!" so I knew I wasn't crazy. The cord was cut and he was thrown into the nurse's arms, finally filling his lungs halfway to the warming table, where the peds residents got to do the fun job. I kept wanting to go over and see the baby. Dad came in and you could see him beaming under the mask. Mom was stitched up and stapled (ouch!) and came out okay, and they wheeled her off. Lots of fanfare, and yet it wasn't even 10 o'clock yet, wasn't even time to check on our next patient.

Patient two was the opposite of quick. It was a 19 year old, "primip" (first pregnancy), and she took all day to get into labor, and then about 3 hours later, she was all tuckered out. I would have been, too, if I had had 7 extra people in the room staring at me in stirrups. Weird. The whole time I kept thinking, she is too young and not ready for this, and the father definitely wasn't ready, he kept smirking and looked like he hadn't graduated high school yet, much less ready to get up for 2 am feedings. We decided to go ahead and do forceps-assisted. I don't know what you think of when you think of forceps, but I was not thinking two huge Pampered-Chef-ice-cream-scoop paddles, and you just put 'em around baby's head and pull down. This baby came out more normal, more like I expected, head, then shoulders, then out. Mom was crying, her mom was crying, baby was crying. Again, a lot of blood. And again, I just wanted to head straight to the warmer and take Apgar scores, but instead I got to stay and see the docs try to make sense of the perineum and stitch it back up. Poor mom just wanted to hold the baby, but we spend 20 minutes sewing her back together. I stood there, waiting for "suture scissors" and then reached in to cut the line. It was a perfect first experience with gowning and gloving and assisting without the surgeon yelling at me (the OB was SUPER nice). And I wasn't even close to passing out for either delivery, until I was in the elevator ready to leave and the adrenaline crashed; then I got a bit light-headed. When they first brought the baby over to see mom, his face was still a little yucky and pale, but he was beautiful, and it was hard to believe that he had only moments before come into the world. You pretty much lose all semblence of privacy or decency when you're pregnant. Between the stretch marks and the fluids and all the doctors and nurses and gloved hands, it's less than ideal. I kept thinking of Christy, all 8 1/2 months and ready to pop and feeling sorry that she would have to go through that, but you just have to pretend it's as routine for you as it is for them (or us, I guess), and know that it is worth it in the end. A brand new little miracle.

And I go back and do it all again tomorrow.