The thing about my work that keeps me slogging through the Bandini is the chance to witness miracles. Life is full of the ordinary everyday miracles, like birth. I had a few births recently that are stuck in my mind.
One was this mom's third baby. Her first baby she had a one hour labor, her second she couldn't remember how long it took - her memory was that it was "Fast!". I had delivered her second baby 2 years ago and my memory is also that it was around one hour. So with this baby she was very anxious that she wouldn't know when she was in labor early enough to get to the hospital. She also was very vocal that she wanted me there again for this baby, too. I told her that I could only guarantee being there if she birthed on Wednesday, the day I am always on call. A few Wednesdays ago, she called me around 10 AM to say she felt kind of funny and could she come in? I told her to come to the office. I checked her, and she was just starting very early labor, far too early to go to the hospital, we both thought. So I told her to go out and hang around, and come back to the office around 1 PM for a recheck. At 1PM, she was a little more dilated, and she was nervous about staying home, so she headed over to the hospital. This labor was going more slowly and much more gently for her than her first two, and she was so grateful and happy. She gave me permission to stay in the office and see patients, and I told her that if she needed me at any time to tell the nurses and I would clear the rest of the afternoon and come hang out with her. But she didn't really need me, she said - she had her husband and her mom and the nurses. She was also OK with having the OB resident involved in her care, as long as I was there to supervise. She spent some time in the Jacuzzi, got her IV antibiotics (preventative in her case for a specific reason - another reason she had been antsy) and around 430 PM I saw my last office patient and headed over. She was then 9 cm and doing great. She quickly got to 10 cm and pushed 13 minutes - as the baby's head was just out the resident unwrapped one loop of umbilical cord from around the neck - then another, then another. And as the body was born we could see that this active baby had tied a true knot in the middle of the the cord as well! Not once during labor had the baby's heart rate shown any signs of stress, let alone distress. A healthy placenta maintained enough blood pressure in the cord that even with all the loops and the knot, the baby always got enough blood flow. As I said - I love it when God sends these little miracles to make life easier.
