I can now officially say that I have witnessed a c/s. While I think that its amazing that they can do it as quickly as they can based on years of perfecting techniques, I kind of hope that I myself don't have to get any. It was still a very moving experience and I had to fight back tears, but it also felt sterile and impersonal. With vaginal deliveries there is more of a tension built up through all the pushing and it feels more intimate. But it was kind of weird to just be like "snip snip pop! baby here!" Ideally, I would like to have vaginal deliveries with no epidural so that I can be fully present in the moment and to not risk endangering my babies, but given the track record of women in my family I'm won't be allowed to delivery vaginally. Anyways, aside from the smell of burning, it was still a neat experience and Baby Boy did very well!
The rest of my day was spent working in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. It was a fairly slow day as my set of twins were stable as was the baby girl I was also assigned to. The parents were there most of the time so that limited my ability to really interact with the babies, but it was educational nonetheless.
I got to see what a 28 week baby looks like as one had recently been delivered in the L+D unit. It's scary how underdeveloped 28 week babies are. Just for reference, a baby is considered at term when it has completed 37 weeks, or the start of the 38th week. That's ten weeks pre-term. That's 2 and a half months. That's not supposed to happen. But, so far baby was doing just fine. It was kind of cool because they had a catheter an artery in the umbilical cord because they can get blood samples this way without continually having to poke the baby with needles. Since this little bebe had a long stay ahead of her I thought this was neat!
Aside from the c/s, the highlight of my day was getting to take vitals, change a poopy diaper, and feed and snuggle an at term baby who was in the NICU because of high bilirubin levels. He was absolutely adorable and the sweetest little boy in the world. He was even more adorable because when the bili bed was turned on (light therapy to help rid him of excess bilirubin) he had to wear these foam sunglasses to protect his eyes. Baby's first stunner shades. I like snuggling and I like babies, but I know I won't be ready for quite some time!
Well, I'm super wiped. These days take so much energy out of me! Next week I'm in L+D again so maybe I'll get to see some more babies being birthed!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
¿Comprende?
Day 3 was so ridiculously overwhelming, but it was also really good too.
I was assigned to the mother-baby unit which is where mother's go after they have delivered but before they are discharged from the hospital. It's a recovery unit of sorts. I was paired up with a really good resource nurse who had been working int he field for about 7 years or so, so that was helpful because I was tres nervous about my first day in Mother-Baby.
I worked with three families all together, but really only interacted with two of them. The first of these two was one of those "if you had waited one second longer the baby would have been born in the hallway" situations. Mama and baby were super comfortable and mostly healthy. The baby was really jittery, which we first thought was because of low glucose. But, we later found out that the mother had smoked some during her pregnancy and so baby girl was going through some minor withdrawals. It was sad to see both a mother who didn't fully realize what the consequences of her actions would be as well as seeing this tiny, helpless infant who was in pain and had no idea why or what was going on. Fact: The placenta doesn't protect the baby from really anything other than holding in all the amniotic fluid the baby pees out. Everything you do to yourself you are also doing to your baby!!
The family that I worked the most with and felt like I bonded with was a Mexican mother who spoke little English. Although I took five years of Spanish in middle/high school and one year at UO, I am super insecure about my abilities, even though they are way more there than I would like to admit. So, no, I never spoke Spanish to her but I regret it now. There were a lot of times where I almost felt myself slip naturally into conversation but because of insecurity, I held myself back.
It was cool though over the course of 8 hours to see how we bonded and how much more comfortable she became with me. I felt like we understood each other well even though we weren't speaking the same language. At times it was almost like I understood her better than the RN which was kinda neat. She had two grown sons who served as translators (MAJOR RED FLAG. YOU NEVER HAVE FAMILY MEMBERS TRANSLATE!!!) because she didn't want to use the translator services as reported by her night nurse. It worked out just fine, but it really wasn't an ideal situation in that sense.
I got to watch a woman's c/s staples being taken out today, which was good because staples freak the heck out of me. This helped me get over my fear of looking at them. Staples should be in paper, not in people. Blech. No me gusta.
I also got to feel a fundus (the top of the uterus) for the first time today. It was nice and firm and in the midline, but it's also weird to be like "I am touching someone's uterus through skin" Just surreal, but also neato!
Pretty slow week as far as cool stories to tell, but it was a big week for me in realizing my style of acclimating to new situations.
Future Goals:
-Get over the nastiness of staples
-Speak Spanish even if minimally
-Make sure to buy those cute mitten things for my babies. So stinkin' adorable!
Have a good week!
I was assigned to the mother-baby unit which is where mother's go after they have delivered but before they are discharged from the hospital. It's a recovery unit of sorts. I was paired up with a really good resource nurse who had been working int he field for about 7 years or so, so that was helpful because I was tres nervous about my first day in Mother-Baby.
I worked with three families all together, but really only interacted with two of them. The first of these two was one of those "if you had waited one second longer the baby would have been born in the hallway" situations. Mama and baby were super comfortable and mostly healthy. The baby was really jittery, which we first thought was because of low glucose. But, we later found out that the mother had smoked some during her pregnancy and so baby girl was going through some minor withdrawals. It was sad to see both a mother who didn't fully realize what the consequences of her actions would be as well as seeing this tiny, helpless infant who was in pain and had no idea why or what was going on. Fact: The placenta doesn't protect the baby from really anything other than holding in all the amniotic fluid the baby pees out. Everything you do to yourself you are also doing to your baby!!
The family that I worked the most with and felt like I bonded with was a Mexican mother who spoke little English. Although I took five years of Spanish in middle/high school and one year at UO, I am super insecure about my abilities, even though they are way more there than I would like to admit. So, no, I never spoke Spanish to her but I regret it now. There were a lot of times where I almost felt myself slip naturally into conversation but because of insecurity, I held myself back.
It was cool though over the course of 8 hours to see how we bonded and how much more comfortable she became with me. I felt like we understood each other well even though we weren't speaking the same language. At times it was almost like I understood her better than the RN which was kinda neat. She had two grown sons who served as translators (MAJOR RED FLAG. YOU NEVER HAVE FAMILY MEMBERS TRANSLATE!!!) because she didn't want to use the translator services as reported by her night nurse. It worked out just fine, but it really wasn't an ideal situation in that sense.
I got to watch a woman's c/s staples being taken out today, which was good because staples freak the heck out of me. This helped me get over my fear of looking at them. Staples should be in paper, not in people. Blech. No me gusta.
I also got to feel a fundus (the top of the uterus) for the first time today. It was nice and firm and in the midline, but it's also weird to be like "I am touching someone's uterus through skin" Just surreal, but also neato!
Pretty slow week as far as cool stories to tell, but it was a big week for me in realizing my style of acclimating to new situations.
Future Goals:
-Get over the nastiness of staples
-Speak Spanish even if minimally
-Make sure to buy those cute mitten things for my babies. So stinkin' adorable!
Have a good week!
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