a three baby day

I got roused out of bed this morning at 3:00. I had told one of the other intens that I would take a shift change baby if she got one so that she could sleep, since she was working on 48 hours with hardly any z's. It turned out that no one was really having a baby, so I went back to bed until 5:50 a.m. when I started my crazy first on shift.

Thursdays aren't supposed to be crazy days. The clinic is only open for citas in the morning, and then we get to deep clean in the afternoon--wipe everything down, sterilize tools, make birth kits, etc. Today was very different from that. It became clear pretty quickly after the start of my shift that two women were in big time labor. Since I'm first on, I'm in charge of getting their vitals, checking heart tones, labor coaching, and checking in with the staff midwife about their progress. One labor is a big enough job, but two is another story altogether. That kept me hopping for a couple of hours until it was obvious that these two were going to have their babies pretty close together. Because of the relative inexperience of both me and the second on intern, we each took one birth as first on.

After the excitement of the births, there's the two hours of vitals, the discharge of the client, and then there is the clean up. Laundry is totally crazy after a birth, perhaps I've mentioned it before. Of course, the laundry from both of these births was really soiled. I had just enough time to scrub and soak and get a load in the washer before another client came in in labor.

A birth that happens 20 minutes before the end of your 12 hour shift is yours until the first two hours of vitals are done. By the time I'd finished those two hours and all the paperwork, I was finally sitting down for dinner at about 9:00 p.m.

I'm grateful for all the lessons learned today. It's rapid fire repetition when you deal with three births in a day, because there's always something to learn from each birth, and there's always something to remember from your last experience, even if it was just 2 hours ago. I'm totally grateful for the great bunch of interns I'm with right now--most of them were rousted out of bed to pitch in for a while today, and everyone helps with the laundry and the clean-up. I like the "we all pitch" in attitude. I hope that they feel that I pitch in for them when they need it.

Anyway, I'm second on now from 6 p.m until 6 a.m., then I'm off for 12 hours. I can honestly say that I'm hoping that no one is born tonight at Casa.

Buenas Noches!