Sign on the dotted line

Please go check out this statment and sign it! Help support a woman's choice for childbirth!

NY Times talks about home birth

Check out this article from the NY Times about home birth...

Another one of those

I had another one of those ladies the other day. You know....one of those who no longer wants to be pregnant at a ridiculously (sp) early time in her pregnancy. She fell in that gray area of 34-37 weeks, where outcomes are sometimes fine, and sometimes not. No matter what I said to her, she just wasn't interested. She 'knew' her baby would be fine. I really tried to explain to her why it was so important that babies gestate for the full amount of time but she just wasn't having it. She had told the nurse, prior to my arrival, that she would break her own water if she knew how to. I finally told her that there wasn't a midwife or doctor in our practice, or anywhere for that matter, that would do anything to help her have her baby. I felt the need to tell her that in case she got it in her head that I was the only one who wouldn't help her cuz she just wasn't liking what I had to say. I really was very patient with her!!!! When I finished (finally gave up), I walked out to the nurse's station and asked the nurse if it was wrong of me to want to smack the patient upside the head?

BTW, before any woman flames me because some women have a lot of problems with pregnancy (such as severe hyperemesis, etc) - this woman had no problems...just didn't want to be pregnant anymore.

Call yesterday/last night

Lots of pretty normal and straightforward labors and births yesterday/last night. I caught four babies total :) It was my first call this month, due to being on vacation most of last week.

I was aggravated though on the way home from the first round. They have placed these stupid photo enforcement zones all over the interstates I use to get to the hospital and I got 'flashed' on the way home last night. One of the nurses suggested sending them a copy of my badge and explaining I was on call for births...I'm thinking "yeah that would be great but I traveling away from the hospital". Might be hard to get that to fly. The whole photo thing really is a pain in the butt for me. In the middle of the night, if I need to get to the hospital fast I really put the pedal to the medal :p Now I can't do that. Hope women can just cross their legs and hold it in.

Vaca

Vegas was great! We had a fabulous but exhausting time. It was me, my mother, and one of our old midwifery students (who had greatcause to celebrate since she just had passed boards). She taught me how to play craps which is wonderful fun!

While we had a great time, there were some things that drove me nuts...

1. People from other countries that seem to have a smaller bubble (thx Lisa) than we do...stay out of my personal space!

2. A man asked me, after touching my tattooed back and arms, "if it was sexy getting tattooed?" Umm, no, duh. It f*ckin' hurts so I guess it would be sexy if you were into S&M.

3. When walking through the casino, do not stop dead center in the aisle and force everyone behind you to squeeze around you. You are not that f*ckin' special princess.

4. When walking through the hotel/casino/wherever watch were you are going. It's kinda hard to avoid running into people when you are walking and looking at the ceiling.

5. When playing Blackjack, do not regal us with your amazing prowness at the game by splitting tens against the dealer's 5. You are breaking up an almost sure winnning hand. And regardless that you think it's your money and you can play how you want - you are f*cking up the whole table.

But other than that, had a fab time!!!!!

Vaca

I'm on vaca starting this morning - woohoo! It's just another short one but still much appreciated. I was on call last night - very quiet - as I had hoped it would be. I got the typical 5am phone call from a lady who thought she might be in labor. As I have mentioned before - night call will always involve a phone call at midnight, 3am, and/or 5am. I told the lady (a primip) to stay home as long as possible - and baby moving well of course. She rushed right into the hospital - she was surprised I was telling her to stay home. Naturally she was 2cms...

So tomorrow I leave for Vegas. We are having a girls trip this time. It will be me, my mommy, a nurse who used to work at the hospital and a old student nurse midwife (who's taking her boards today and hopefully passing as we 'speak'). I'll be back Thursday so will plan to blog on the trip this weekend :)

See you guys in a few days!

Halloween fun

We had a nice time last night for Halloween. It's one of my fav holidays....well any holiday that gets me candy is a fav! In fact, it's one of the reasons I had children - great way to get free candy :)

I was a zombie midwife carrying my raggedy zombie baby. Both of us had blood all over us. My scrubs said Ded Midwifery Service - snicker...get it?

My husband was a cereal killer. My mother was a cross between Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner - she was punk rocker wearing this purple wig that i thought we would have to kill.

The kids were a vampire, red devil witch, and a princess.

I hope everyone who celebrates this heathen holiday had a wonderful time!

Part 2

Lady #2 did an amazing job with her labor. This was her first baby and she did it like a pro. I had seen a lot of her in the office so was thrilled that it had worked out that I would catch her baby (it usually does). She labored all day long and into the night doing various positions, the tub, the ball, etc. Unfortunately the baby was so low in her pelvis that from 5cms on she wanted to push. The ball helped the most but I felt so bad for her. Now, the delivery, I'd love to tell you how wonderful it was but I missed it! I got tied up with lady #3 and was not happy about it. So, a midwife from another practice happened to be there babysitting her two ladies with crappy labors. She stepped in for me and caught. She said lady #2 rocked. It was a big baby boy and no lacs - woohoo! But I was very sad to have missed it.

So while my personal patient lady #2 was delivering, I was stuck with a naughty baby belonging to a very whiny lady #3. Essentially, she and her significant other were very nice people but I had only met them the day before. She spent much of the time when I would visit with her talking about how she went into labor and what she did and didn't want for this induction. For someone who spent so much time begging to be induced she was being awfully picky and high maintenance. After pitting, broken up with some walking and a shower, she finally started moving along. We had started before I even came on call with pitocin and I couldn't break her water until around 8pm that evening. She continued to make progress but then we started getting some really ugly strip...big deep variables with contractions...guesses on what the problem was??? Yes, she had a nuchal cord. So anyway, she had an anterior lip which I was able to reduce. She was about a -1 station at this point but I figured she could push it out in 10 minutes or less. Her biggest baby was 8-4 and she had had three vag deliveries already. So I tell her I want to go for a quick delivery due to the variables. She then tells me she is a bad pusher, had to push a minimum of one hour with all her babies. Greeeaattttt...and she wasn't kidding! For every good push she had, there were about 8 crappy ones. I was starting to think I would need to call the doc in for a vacuum delivery. She finally did it about 12 minutes after lady #2 delivered. Grrr...and she whined the whole way through. I felt a little bad because she was starting to cry but I knew she could do it...we just had to figure out what worked for her. It was just frustrating for her and for us...towards the end we were getting variables down into the 40's but still fairly rapid return to baseline after contraction. I hate hearing that slow thud....thud...thud....and naturally my doc didn't want to come in. I had told him I would work with her for 10 more minutes, and if she didn't make some progress then he was coming...no questions asked.

Oh well, lots of healthy, happy parents and babies so all's well that end's well :) Can't ask for much more than that!