serendipti's Diaryland Diary

1:40 a.m. - Saturday, Jan. 07, 2006

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in the hallway, trying to catch a bebe

it is 1:40am. I am literally planted on a stool in the Labor and Delivery Hallway. These punks are not screwing me out of being hte first one to catch the baby. No siree bobski. I have put up with a lot....hours and hours of pushing with different women, checking and re-checking cervices (i assume that is the correct plural of cervix) and going, yeah, she is around 3 cm dialted, 5 cm dilated, 7 cm dialted, yes, she is complete, oh, wait, there is an upper lip of the cervix that still has not thinnned, and then hours and hours of deep breath, 1-2-3-4-, or else, respire profundo por favor...empuje como necesita hacer po-po (that is my special way of explaining....push like you need to make a poo poo....I don't care what anyone says, push like you are making a bowel movement does not work for the layperson...I am sorry....it just sounds ridiculo)...uno-dos-tres....and right when the head crowns and we are on the last push, my nervous little frame gets boxed out of the winners circle, rudely shoved aside by ob attending (any of two really nice indian auntie types who clearly size me up from the scrutiny of their up and down looks, but find some measure of reassurance because they spot the goldness of the earrings on my ears....at least the girl still believes in mother-country-metal they console themselves...) or else some random private docs who pretend you don't exist, or WORSE, one of the residents from family med who just started rotation and are all about delivering their first bebes too, and so all of a sudden, baby is about to pop out, I am RIGHT THERE, all up in her grill, bilateral fingers in the vagina helping the baby come out, and then BOOM....BOX OUT, and before I can sneeze in the not-so-sterile field, I am the chump who gets pushed aside and someone else catches the baby.
CHUMP.
ALL CAPS. Also the CHUMP who was on call for New Years because she VOLUNTEERED.
CHUMP. SAME ONE.
And yes, maybe they let me collect the cord blood....unclamp the clamp, catch the blood as in gushes forth into two little vials....of course, when one of the indian auntie attendings told me to do this as the baby was crying, fresh out of the uterus, covered in the slime and grime of birth, and the granma is hollering, and dad is snapping pics with camera phone, and auntie attending says 'point it down' as she hands me the vials, and though I am a little confused at to the 'it' i grab a clamp with one hand, point it downwards and as the blood sails clear over my shoulder from the umbilical cord and onto the younger sister who is at a posterior diagonal to me, I realize the 'it' the attending was referring to was the actual umbilical cord, with the high velocity gushage. Oopss....so even if they let you collect cord blood, or else, wait, gently starighten cord, and then deliver the placenta....even if they let you do that, for gods sakes man, it is the PLACENTA, not the BABY....NOBODY, and I REPEAT NOBODY, is SNAPPING PICS from their camera phone of the placenta....it is bloody, and gushy, and filled with rich and savory bits of fetal nutrition and whatnot, but come on, doc, gimme a small smidgen of the baby spotlight, will ya?? Just one quick cup and grab as it slides out....and yes, thanks for letting me suction the mouth and nostrils as you pull it out....BUT CAN YOU LET ME CATCH IT ALREADY???
It is now 2 am. Clearly, you can see why I am still awake, although none of my ladies want to dilate anymore, and one of them has been dilated at 8 cm for the past 4 hours, and the other dilated from 8 to 9cm in the past 4 hours and so here I am, on a stool, at a porta computer, in the hallway outside the rooms, because I am not clamping the cord, i am not collecting cord blood, I am not delivering afterbirth....I AM GOING TO DELIVER ONE OF THESE BABIES SO HELP ME GOD!!!!
Actually, help the babies I guess, since I have never done it before totally.....helped Rohun come out of bhabhi, but did not pull him out solo.
Clearly, this is something that is bugging me because this is the end of the second week, and after this I have very little chance of much more, because I start the gyne service in a week. I am not a total egomaniac or anything....i just want to do it alone before the rotation is done.....it is an itch I need to eliminate....
I won't lie. I am extremely tired. This evening, one of our patients' who was in labor, her baby's heart decelerated....very bad when the baby heart slows down....to the point where we had to rush her into the OR cuz we thought we might have to do an emergency c-section....and of course, we were all just sitting around and eating when this happens, so one moment there is warm tofu in a peanut sauce sliding down my throat, and the next, I am scrubbed up, in the OR, with warm tofu in peanut sauce pushing up, trying to get past my lower esophageal sphincter into my oropharynx....going from rest and digest to fight or flight can be a bit much for the unaccostumed.
Luckily, she ended up having a NSVD...Normal Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery, but it was scary freaky for a while.
I need to write more about the details of all this when I am less tired. I am so tired right now. Jesus. My bhai and bhabhi and Rohun are back in the country. That made me happy. Also what made me happy today was finding out I passed my Internal medicine exam, which I was sure I had failed. Also Dean Mendez hooking me up with a piece of German choco cake for his 43rd bday and then being able to kick it with my peeps in the office at school (shout out to Precious) and then going to an anti-Bush rally downtown with Joe the commie.....all these things and the workshop in the morning, where a woman taught us the gyne exam....i need to write more about that......i am about to slump over, please allow me the luxury of stopping.
good night
good morning
these babies better come now

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