It’s been a few weeks since my last birth. The midwife I had built the strongest connection with went back into retirement. Fewer and fewer full-bullied women were waddling into the clinic for pre-natal checks. It was not looking good for me and the births.
Just as I was beginning to resign to the slowness of Fridays, I walked into the midwifes office to find it empty. The nurse sent me straight upstairs to find the midwife assisting a laboring woman.
At 31 years old, this is Emily’s 6th pregnancy, and 6th child. She arrived at the hospital at 7am already dialed to 8cms. By 9am she was fully open and had received a spinal block.
I entered labor and delivery unit at 9:15am. The midwife said they’d wait to get her to push. I helped her catch up with the paper work.
Emily only came into the clinic for one pre-natal visit. She canceled the rest of her appointments; maybe she couldn’t take the time with 5 other kids to care for.
At 9:30 the midwife decided it was time to have a baby. Myself, the midwife and the nurse entered the delivery room to inform the mother. The nurse re-assembled the bed. Plastic, comfortable-looking stirrups were pulled out. Emily’s feet were placed into them. The bottom of the bed was taken out and the whole apparatus was raised so the midwife could stand between her legs and be at arms level to catch the baby.
The midwife suited up in a blue gown and good fitting gloves. She pulled the sterile blue tray of tools closer to her.
Emily sat following all the movements in the room with her eyes. The monitor thudded out the baby’s heartbeat. Emily’s face was empty .
The midwife watched the monitor and the vagina. She told Emily when, how and how long to push.
Under direction, Emily easily pushed out a 7lb 3oz baby girl at 9:37am.
The midwife put pressure on the woman’s belly triggering the uterus to expel the placenta. She investigated for perineum tares, found a little one and sewed it up. Within a minute of the last stitch, she had the mother push the placenta out.
Placing the placenta and some bloodied sheets on the blue tool table, the midwife left the room and I followed her out. The midwife finished up her paperwork, looked over at me and said “our work here is done” signaling it was time to go back down to the clinic. That was one fast birth!
I couldn’t help but thinking how absent the women seemed in her birth. Her face was relaxed but she never spoke.
Back downstairs the midwife stated that that was one of her easiest births she’d ever attended.
When I asked if Emily was in great pain when she checked into the hospital, the midwife said no and that she probably could have delivered without it. She hadn’t used anything with the other 5 kids.
It was quiet the rest of the day down in the clinic. Hopefully it was quiet and peaceful for the mother and new baby upstairs as well.
