Meeting Isabelle

*LONG POST ALERT*

I spent the day in OB today and would like to blog about my day as a way of processing the info. I went up there around 7:30 this morning, right after shift change. I decided to shadow Monica and Rachel, two RN's in Labor and Delivery. They were great and they thrust me right into the action.

Three patients were already in labor at that time. One was 23, one 25, and one 14. Yes, 14 YEARS old. She just graduated eighth grade and her boyfriend, the baby's daddy, was still IN eighth grade. They both looked young for their ages. She was scared and alone and I spent a little over an hour at the bedside, trying to distract her from the pain. She wasn't far enough along to do the epidural, so she lost herself in the Disney Channel. My eighth grade patient was watching, "That's So Raven."

All three labors progressed similarly and Anesthesiology came up to administer the epidurals for all three. I had the awesome luck of having met Dr. Doctor at last week's golf outing, so he invited me to get an up-close and personal view of the epidural. Honestly, I was fine until I realized that the epidural is a tiny tube going into the patients' spines. I always thought it was a big, long injection. Like, a shot. Not a continuous thing! I steadied myself against the wall and was fine until the doctor pulled the tube out just a bit and there was a bit of spinal matter in the tube. Seeing that spinal matter upset me and I had to step out of the room.

I was okay while watching the other two epidurals; I knew when I look away and avoid the spinal situation!

So things calmed down until lunchtime. We heard the ambulance arriving and it was a hemorrhaging woman, 27 weeks along. It was...gruesome. They took her right into the OR as Monica and Rachel started the blood transfusion and the docs ran ahead to scrub in for surgery. They asked me if I was coming and I answered with a wavering, "sure, why not?" I scrubbed in, full regalia, and was a fly on the wall in the OR.

I watched as they cut an emergency Caeserian, separated a layer of fat and muscles, cut the through the uterus, and pulled out a 1.3 pound baby. As soon as the baby was out, they did a hysterectomy or the mother may have well bled to death. Watching surgery ended up being like watching a trainwreck...I couldn't NOT watch. Sure there was blood and internal tissue waiting to go to Pathology, but I was weirdly okay. I eventually turned my attention to the Neonatal doc, as he stabilized, intubated, and ventilated the baby. Mom survived the surgery and baby was transferred to one of the medical centers downtown after a short tenure in the NICU. However, it was organized chaos and to my untrained eye, it resembled madness in there!

After that little adventure, all three of the "regular" births progressed accordingly. It amazed me to watch those births...One mom gave birth at 4:08 pm and by 4:25, the room was cleaned up, instruments and lights stowed, baby's vitals recorded, and mom was left to snuggle with the newborn. They're so...efficient! My eighth-grader gave birth a little before 6pm, a healthy daughter (with an even healthier set of lungs!) whom she named Isabelle.

So today, I spent 12 hours in OB, watched four births, and met Isabelle.