Today I am missing my friend. She was killed in an accident 3 years ago today. Its nice to have time a space to contemplate her. Woke up did sun salutations, one for every year of life and one for each of the years of her life I have now missed out on. She was golden. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into the hospital or just sit with my memories but intuition drew me into the maternity ward. It was busy! Two women were being prepared for ceasar (c-sections), which never happens (two at once) and there were several antenatal women getting close to delivery. The midwives and nurses were all busy. I took one women back to the delivery room, she was saying that she wanted to sit sit (push). No one was around to help me so I prepped everything, hemorrhage meds, IV ready to insert if need be and layed out all the supplies. I did an exam and she still had a bit of cervix there, we tried to push it back but it didn’t work. I had her do some sidelying contractions, still there. I could tell that the baby was a little asynclitic or crooked coming down by the sutures on the babies skull. This mamma had been up all night, she was exhausted and kept begging me to help her. Much to her dislike I made her get up out of the bed and put one foot up on the stool and do some lunges while I helped support her through a contractions. She cried while we swayed and then switched feet for the next contraction. Suddenly she started to grown so I had her get back onto the bed and slipped on my gloves. With the next contraction the babies head was crowning, it worked!!!! After the head I felt and there was cord around the babies neck. I told the mom to stop pushing so that I could try and slip it over the baby’s head… it was too tight. Another strong contraction came and told the mamma to pullum wind (breathe) through the contraction so I could cut the cord but she couldn’t stop it and the baby was coming. We learn this technique to sommersault the baby out in school but I had never actually done it. I held my breath and pinned the head to the inside of the mom’s thigh and the baby flopped out of her in a forward roll. Future acrobat maybe. The baby was quite blue and for about 30 seconds didn’t take a breath. My heart raced as rubbed the baby, trying to get it to cry. It let out a cough and then strong scream, and its skin started to get pink. Phew!!!! I gave the mamma her shots, delivered the placenta, examined her perineum and she had a small tear. I set up a sterile field, gave her 5 stitches, one of the best I have done and then took the baby out be weighed and given its shots. No other person came into the delivery room the entire time. I knew they were just out in the hallway and only a shout away if I needed help but it felt like such a sense of accomplishment and competence to be able to do it all on my own. Through a cervical lip, a nuchal cord and a tear. I starting to really trust my skills and feel proficient in my craft. Thank you Autumn, you are always giving me beautiful gifts…. I miss you!
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