Friday, October 19, 2007

Birth Story II

Baby number two came on Wednesday. This time was so much easier than the last one. It is still scary and the most exciting thing I have ever witnessed.

This time we went in around 9:00 am with regular contractions. The doctor examined Mom and she was dilated to 3 cm. So doctor told her to go for a walk and to come back in about two hours and they would check her again.

At about 1pm we went back. Her contractions were getting stronger and now she was dilated to 4cm. The doctor said with her Russian accent, "I think we'll have a birthday party before midnight."

They took us to a room and we got settled in. The nurses were in and out for the next few hours monitoring the fetal heart rate and contractions. And everything was going smoothly.

A little after 6pm the nurse came in and said that she was going to have the doctor examine Mom again and see how she was progressing. By this time the shift was changing and a new doctor came in. He didn't introduce himself he just said that he was going to check her and then he said that she was still about the same and sent the nurse for something. She handed it to him and as he is inserting this thing he said that he was going to break her water and get things moving. Then he told the nurse to get some Pitosin and he left.

Now Mom was in tears. This whole pregnancy had been very good until this point. She had seen the same two midwives for all her regular exams. Now, on the day that she goes into labor there is no midwife on call. So not only is she stuck with a doctor that she has never seen before, but he is also a jerk.

I got the nurse and told her that Mom was very upset about that doctor and asked if there was any way to get a midwife, since that was the plan from the beginning. She said that she understood and she would see what she could do to help.

A few minutes later she came in and said that she could not get one of the midwives to come in and Mom was sobbing by this point. I asked if there was any way that the Russian doctor could do it because she was very nice and took the time to explain things and listen. The nurse went to check. Within seconds the Russian doctor and another female doctor, Dr. B, came in. The Russian explained that her shift was ending in a few minutes but Dr. B would be there and she could do the delivery so that we did not have to see Dr. Jerk again.

Dr. B introduced herself and said that she had trained with the midwives and would do everything possible to have the same type of delivery as we would have with a midwife. Then the Russian said that she would be only a few minutes away and would come in assist as long as the attending allowed her to come in. But, after checking with him she came back and said the she was not allowed and she assured us that Dr. B was very good and that she would do a great job.

At about 8:30 pm, Dr B. came in and examined Mom. She was completely dilated and +1. "It's time to have a baby," she told us. She predicted that that baby would come in 10 to 15 minutes.

Mom started pushing and by the second push I could see the baby's hair. Thirty minutes into pushing Dr. B said that the baby will come with one or two more pushes. They brought in the pediatrics team and the attending physician and she pushed one more time and out came baby's head. Dr. B suctioned the mouth and Baby screamed. One more push and we had a baby girl--a beautiful pink, screaming baby girl. Dr. B cut the cord and handed her to the pediatrics team. They checked her out and she was fine.

This was not as scary as Baby One's birth. He was blue when he came out and it took a while for him to cry, but he is now a very healthy two year old.

Baby Two and Mom get to come home tomorrow.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Rob, I was happy to read about the birth of your second child. Congratulations! We recently had our second here too, and it was a home birth with a couple of midwives. My wife wouldn't have traded the home birth experience for anything... well, except for maybe a painless birth.
Babies are cute. I read the communist manifesto to mine when she was in the womb.

David