A Day of Highs
The day started out as mundane and routine as any other for a pleb midwife working in a birthing unit, but it ended up being quite a special day.
It all started with handover from night staff, telling us about 3 women who were in the various rooms in various stages of 1st stage labour. One in particular was induced over night due to high blood pressure, and, I was told, baby was a smallish size. The tired night staff went home, Judith, (our fearless team leader for the shift) played eenie meenie miney moe and decided to give me the lady with high blood pressure to look after, Jane one of the other ladies, and herself the lady she had met and already knew before. I took my time, got changed, and sauntered into the room my lady was in, only to realise after a split second, whilst watching her suck on the nitrous oxide, that it was Helen, whom I've known since kindergarten, and all the way through high school! The last time I had seen H was probably in Novemeber or December last year at Mancini's restaurant in Belfield after Evening Service one night.
To cut out many of the sordid details that I'm sure anyone reading this wouldn't want to know, baby J was born at 11:29am. Unfortunately, he came out flat, not breathing for 2½ minutes, and had some respiratory distress due to blood pressure lowering medications I had to give Helen, as well as narcotic pain killers and had to be rushed to the nursery. He has now been weaned off the high concentration of oxygen they had to give him at first and is now fine. That was the only low point of the day. Otherwise, it was a real buzz for me as it's the first time I've ever delivered a friend's baby, and, (despite the fact that my back hurt heaps afterwards) it was the first time I've delivered a baby with the mum not lying on the bed... I was actually kneeling on the floor, (Okay, just use your imagination here, I'm not going to elaborate) and, Helen didn't need a single stitch!!! I was VERY impressed.
Just afterwards, H and I did some reminiscing, and thought it quite interesting that 10 years ago, we were in our last year of high school, probably stressing over the trial HSC exams that would've been coming up soon; 10 years ago, who would ever have guessed in a million years that I would be delivering her first baby? And it's the 10th April today...
As a side note, the person who was giving me grief at work before has decided to be nice to me. I don't know what changed her mind, but to end a very nice day, I shall now go for some very therapeutic retail therapy and buy some new work shoes, me thinks.
The day started out as mundane and routine as any other for a pleb midwife working in a birthing unit, but it ended up being quite a special day.
It all started with handover from night staff, telling us about 3 women who were in the various rooms in various stages of 1st stage labour. One in particular was induced over night due to high blood pressure, and, I was told, baby was a smallish size. The tired night staff went home, Judith, (our fearless team leader for the shift) played eenie meenie miney moe and decided to give me the lady with high blood pressure to look after, Jane one of the other ladies, and herself the lady she had met and already knew before. I took my time, got changed, and sauntered into the room my lady was in, only to realise after a split second, whilst watching her suck on the nitrous oxide, that it was Helen, whom I've known since kindergarten, and all the way through high school! The last time I had seen H was probably in Novemeber or December last year at Mancini's restaurant in Belfield after Evening Service one night.
To cut out many of the sordid details that I'm sure anyone reading this wouldn't want to know, baby J was born at 11:29am. Unfortunately, he came out flat, not breathing for 2½ minutes, and had some respiratory distress due to blood pressure lowering medications I had to give Helen, as well as narcotic pain killers and had to be rushed to the nursery. He has now been weaned off the high concentration of oxygen they had to give him at first and is now fine. That was the only low point of the day. Otherwise, it was a real buzz for me as it's the first time I've ever delivered a friend's baby, and, (despite the fact that my back hurt heaps afterwards) it was the first time I've delivered a baby with the mum not lying on the bed... I was actually kneeling on the floor, (Okay, just use your imagination here, I'm not going to elaborate) and, Helen didn't need a single stitch!!! I was VERY impressed.
Just afterwards, H and I did some reminiscing, and thought it quite interesting that 10 years ago, we were in our last year of high school, probably stressing over the trial HSC exams that would've been coming up soon; 10 years ago, who would ever have guessed in a million years that I would be delivering her first baby? And it's the 10th April today...
As a side note, the person who was giving me grief at work before has decided to be nice to me. I don't know what changed her mind, but to end a very nice day, I shall now go for some very therapeutic retail therapy and buy some new work shoes, me thinks.
