Greased lightening

So I’ve had a busy week since my return from my epic horse adventures. Which were awesome by the way, it was so busy with such long days that I didn’t have time to think about work at all. A true mental break, although physically I was pretty knackered!

All my clients waited for me to get back too, so I didn’t miss anything, which was great but didn’t help with subsequent time management!

With last weeks full moon I had two clients on the go at once (surprise, surprise 😉). One was post dates - as in overdue - the other had an unstable lie. This is where the baby moves around from transverse (sideways) to cephalic (head down).

A term pregnancy is any time from 37-42 weeks gestation. After that a woman is considered to be ‘post dates’. This particular client had tried all my more natural induction methods of homeopathy, acupuncture and the more traditional stretch and sweep. Nothing had worked. She had decided to now opt for a medical induction. She was also well over the pregnancy end symptoms of the previous few days.

The other client with the baby bouncing around every which way was stuck up on the ward waiting to have her baby. This is because if her waters were to break when baby was sideways there is a chance the cord will fall into the vagina first, become compressed and cut off the oxygen supply to baby. I’ve only had one other client with this issue at term. And sure enough, while she was on her own in the hospital bathroom her waters broke, she was very on to it, and pulled the emergency bell, then went head down bum up to take the weight off the cord. Her baby was born via emergency Caesarean section 11 minutes later.

It’s a big deal.

But back to this client, the plan for her was to break her waters and guide baby into a head down position at the same time - or to induce during one of those times it was cephalic. And just now it was! Tick, tock, tick, tock...

The next problem for both these women was that there were no hospital staff available to run their inductions. Some other women had been waiting on the ward for days for their turn to come. We were lucky that there were even birth rooms available, the full moon and the joys of coming out of the COVID lockdown nine months beforehand has been wreaking havoc on our hospitals and birthing centres.

So of course I had a plan! My locum and I would take one woman each (hopefully in rooms next to each other - but that would surely be too good to be true) and if we got tired my back up could come and take over for one of us to give us a rest. Even if it was just a nap in the armchair! I phoned the head midwife to offer up this plan and could feel her relief over the phone. Once she cleared it with her colleagues we arranged to all meet up at the hospital that afternoon when I finished my clinic.

So there I was, client on the bed, baby monitor on, iv leur sited, bloods sent, me perched on the side of the bed amnio hook in hand (yes think large crochet hook - no it doesn’t hurt!)

I was poised to break her waters and then there was a knock at the door, I was summoned outside. Gloves off, apologies made and out I go. Where I was told due to how busy they were I needed a Reg review before I broke her waters.

Ah right. Feck.

So Reg in the room, she decides that my client’s latent labour isn’t painful enough to push her up the queue ahead of the others waiting on the ward. But “hang on, they are all waiting because you have no staff - I am now being your staff, but I’m not giving up my time for someone else’s client!“

But that common sense didn’t fly. They booked her in to return the next day for an induction by their staff when I would be on my weekend off.

Nooooo!!!!

A little bit pissy I was, to say the least.

But hey protocols are for a purpose and the wheels of that machine are bigger than me.

So then I have a tearful woman and a very disappointed dad to be - that I have to shuffle out the door. Hard when they had thought they would be walking out those doors with their long awaited baby. She was actually very stoic and insisted she would be ringing me in labour that night. Unlikely I thought, but I hoped so. Hopefully I would be finished with my other client by then!

So after a few deep breaths and a mind reset, up the stairs I go to collect my lady with the bouncing baby. Only to find out that her baby was now sideways again and they were considering a caesarean instead - but not till after the long weekend.

And again Noooooooo!!!

So smug little me - who should have known better - thought she had organised everything and was going to have two babies for the price of one that day. And I got none! Nada. Zilch.

So four hours of wasted time and I walked out the back doors with no labours under my belt. Excellent job Batman.

Dinner was then followed by a massive whine to the hubby and I had reconciled to the change of all my plans and was looking forward to my bed. After all babies never follow plans, I shouldn’t have got my hopes up.

And because I had decided bed was actually a good option the phone of course rang just as I was crawling under the covers. It didn’t take me long to change my attitude - I was so relieved that she didn’t have to go for the medical induction after all.

She had an awesome labour until one of those dreaded anterior lips showed up and the poor woman had to fight the urge to push. That’s a hard job and she did amazing. The pushing stage was also hard - like it is for most first time mums. It took every trick I could think of to get that baby to crown.

And when he did something weird happened. He was looking down like normal, then he turned to look to the left like normal. Then with the next contraction the body didn’t come - Not like normal.

My back up was with me, as after graduating she’s been getting in some birthing practice before her own clients are due. A win win for me, I get company and a huge helping hand!

So after we changed mums position into a move called McRoberts I reached in to try to unstick the baby’s shoulders. But it felt wrong. I couldn’t tell what I was feeling, it didn’t feel like the back of his shoulder as it should.

WEIRD! Adrenalin was starting to flow now. Then the baby started to spin from the left to the right, all the way down and around. Oh so that was the reason! It had restituted the wrong way - now it was going to come easily for sure.

But no, he had only just started his dance. From turning first left, then right he then turned to the right again. That’s two extra moves than normal! My partner and I leapt back to make sure our hands were not interfering. Her eyes were huge, pity I was too gob smacked at the time to tease her about it.

What a clever baby!!! He danced to his own tune to unstick his shoulders and didn’t need me at all. Legend.

I just love how birth keeps throwing me some new miracles.

Keep em coming.