Birth

Today I had the most amazing clinical experience to date: attending a birth. It was my first day on the floor and my fellow students spent the day in lecture learning about stages of labor and fetal heart monitors (I took the class last quarter), so I was going solo. I walked into the patient's room around hour 16 of labor and the second hour of active pushing. It was mom's first baby so things were bound to take a bit longer and to complicate matters, the baby boy was not making a lot of progress down the birth canal. I did a lot of waiting, occasionally pushing a button to stop random beeping and after a couple of hours the doc came in and decided to try using the vacuum. Suddenly the room was in a bustle of activity. I followed the nurse to grab the baby blankets and hats and watched as they took down part of the bed and readied a plastic bag at a strategic location. A cart rolled out with clamps and needles and the doc put on a gown, stuck on the vacuum, and about a minute later there was another person in the room! As the babies head emerged I heard a funny little sound. Sure enough, poor mom had a fourth degree laceration (her tissue was torn all the way from the vagina to the rectum). I watched the doc suturing and watched the nurse dry off the baby and tried to remember that if I were the nurse in the situation, there would be a lot of things for me to do at this point. I just wanted to stop everyone in the room and shout "hey, something incredible just happened here! Let's take a moment to marvel." But of course, torn tissue and cold babies can't wait. I got to give the baby his first bath and diaper and feel the mom's fundus (the top of her uterus). And later in the day I got to stick my fingers into a laboring woman's vagina to feel the baby's head and her dilating cervix.

What a wonderful job it must be to work in OB. Although my experience today really did reinforce my decision to become a nurse. As the patient this morning labored, her nurse was monitoring her, making decisions about med rates and progress, getting to know mom and dad, teaching them how to get through labor and care for their new baby. The doctors - two wonderful women who I'm sure are very competant and caring - came in three times in as many hours, spent a total of 25 minutes delivering the baby and suturing the lac and were gone again. I'm glad I chose a health profession that allows a bit more hands-on, comprehensive, nonhurried care.

I just had such an amazing day and am so excited to go back next week - although I only get one more day in labor. But I'm not too worried that I'm losing the love for infectious diseases... While the birth of a brand new human tops my list of clinical experiences, the unroofing of a herpes lesion in the summer is a close second, so I think I'm still good with my microorganisms.