I absolutely love teaching. I love showing a mom where her baby's head is and having her feel that hard noggin in her belly. I love having students show interest in maternity care and teaching them how to discover the baby's position and where to find the heartbeat. It's like opening up a whole new world and most people love learning about it.
And I love having high school girls come to volunteer a few hours to help file records and hopefully watch a live birth. Last week, I had a junior in high school who is interested in medicine come for a few hours. Let's call her Charise. I saw that there were quite a few women in labor, so I was hopeful that she would get to observe and help with the birth.
After filing a few records, we gave a baby her first bath. Shortly after, one of the laboring women started showing the classic signs of transitional labor. It was time to push. I got Charise her own pair of gloves and put on a pair myself while we waited behind the curtain with the midwife. I positioned Charise standing in the 12 inches between the bed and wall, while I stood on the other side. Jheny (midwife) stood at the end ready to catch.
Sure enough, a head popped out followed by a slippery and wiggling body. Jheny placed the little girl on her mama's belly while Charise and I vigorously dried her. I kept checking Charise to make sure she was doing ok, because birth is not a typically beautiful thing...and it can get very claustrophobic behind those curtains! Charise kept exclaiming how cool the whole thing was...and how little blood there was.
After the little babe was dried, we placed her skin to skin on her mama's chest and draped a blanket over her to keep them warm. I darted out to get the oxytocin to inject after the placenta was delivered. When I came back in, I saw the midwife inspecting the placenta, then glanced up at Charise...she was white as a sheet! I quickly asked if she was ok. No response. Uh-oh!
I leaned over the mama and baby, quickly grabbing Charise's torso, forming a bridge over the newly delivered mom. Charise started to sag while I held on to her. I asked for the baby's father to help manuver her from between the bed and wall, then met them at the head of the bed, draping Charise's arms around my neck while I "danced" her over to the recovery bed. The sweet mom already on that bed moved up her legs while I draped Charise on the end of the bed.
As soon as Charise laid down, she came to...giggling! She was LAUGHING! I was wishing for a video camera as we talked about what had just happened and everyone in that tiny little room just burst out laughing, even the mom still on the delivery table.
I went back to helping Jheny with the mama and baby, forcing Charise to keep her head down for a few minutes. Afterwards, she was something of a celebrity as everyone repeated the story and whipped out their cellphones for a picture with the American girl who had fainted.
Awesome.
And the movie quote is said by Fanny Price in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park.
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