Call recently

I have been doing a lot of call recently and for the next couple weeks as well. Here are some highlights from the past couple shifts...

A call at 10pm from a patient who is a G5P3 and 37 weeks. She tells me she's been dilated 5cms for a couple weeks now and they keep sending her home from the hospital. She's tired, not sleeping (3 hours in the past three nights....exaggerate much?), and has big babies and wants to be done. She has an appointment in the morning with another midwife but is tired of being pregnant. The unspoken question? "Can you induce me tonight?". My spoken answer? "No induction until at least 39 weeks (spoken in my head - "especially not at 10pm"). We can do it then as long as your cervix is favorable (who knows if she's really 5cms)". I politely reminded her that I didn't get her pregnant and that her discomfort was not my fault. This was after listening to her complaints for about 15 minutes and trying to be emphathetic. She saw another midwife the next day with the same spiel, who asked me what I thought and I said not until 39 weeks. And she checked her....she was 3-4cms.

4 babies graced me with their prescence (sp) in one 24 hour call shift. All were nice births with no complications.

Had another lady who chatted with her mother the entire time she was pushing and birthing (she had an epidural). I was ready to bang my head against the wall. But she still did good - took 30 minutes to push out her OP baby.

Had a lady who came in because she had been feeling sick for three days. She was something like 30 weeks pregnant. I diagnose her with the flu and she is slightly dehydrated. I give her an Rx for oseltamavir and phenergan since she can't keep anything down. She promptly tells me that she probably won't get those filled because she doesn't have the money for the copays. I ask how much the copays are and she says it varies but the last Rx she filled cost her $4. But you can manage to scrap up money to buy cigs. She tells me that if she gets to feeling worse she'll just call an ambulance. Nice. My tax dollars at work. So why did you bother coming to see me at all and bringing your nice little flu germs with you?????