Monday, June 19, 2006

Right in Front of Me

I had a great week end! My sister-in-law who lives in NY decided to surprise her dad, so she flew in and arrived at the house on Sunday afternoon. It was good to see her and her best friend A., because I love those girls, even though I don't get to spend too much time with them, I have a blast every time I see them . I have always been a family type of girl, but with my side of the family being far from me I need these family reunions more than ever. We were all chatting about A being a med student. It is pretty amazing in fact, since she is 24 I believe and will be graduating next year as a doctor. Granted she still has to be an intern and then a resident for 3 years, but she'll be able to practice on her own at age 27! Pretty impressive.

We were asking her all sorts of questions about here rotations, which ones she liked and disliked, and we started talking about her OB rotation. She told us that during her rotation she had caught about 50 babies....that's a pretty big number. I was surprised though, at how A. described a birth. She never mentioned that she was amazed by seeing a baby coming to this world or even talked about how beautiful it must be to see a mom holding her child for the very first time.

She was explaining to us that she had to start every morning at 6am, that she could not leave until the last mom had given birth and that her thoughts after she had gone 2 hours past the time that she usually leaves the hospital, was "Come on....Get that baby out already! I just want to go home....." She was explaining how gross it was to have all the mom's bodily fluids coming out of her...How the mom was screaming to get the child out....and how hot and uncomfortable the clothes that she had to wear, with the mask and protection all over, were.

I understand that it is not everybody's dream to see births and attend women while they give birth. I also understand that it must have been shocking to be asked to catch a baby the first time she attended a birth, but I heard and saw that attitude of impatience that I was suspecting doctor have while waiting for a mom to give birth. I saw why doctors decide to give moms pitocin as soon as possible, because they know for a fact that otherwise, just like A., they'll have to be at the hospital until who knows what time.

This is the reason why I believe that women who are healthy should see a midwife...Somebody who is committed to births, somebody who knows that it will take hours and hours for the child to come and who is ok with that.

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