The invisible superhero...

After the homebirth on Sunday night I had an interrupted daytime sleep on Monday, what with the phone and a courier and hungry horses. Tuesday I had a long clinic day and an X-ray on the very sore back, then on Tuesday evening

I sent a client to Waikato as she was bleeding. On arrival her blood pressure was elevated and she was also contracting, it was looking very likely she was going into premature labour. As I was so tired catching up on sleep from the homebirth and dealing with the back pain I thought I had better catch a couple of hours sleep myself.

I was just nodding off and of course the phone rang. But it wasn’t the hospital, it was another client in labour. SHIT I always have a panic about being in two places at once and having to tell someone - no matter how much I would like to be a super hero - that it’s not quite possible. Who do you choose? Who you think will need you most emotionally - or medically? Or is it just as simple as who calls first? Which other midwife will I wake in the middle of the night to go to the one I can’t get to?

So a huge amount was racing around in my head before I even got to say hello back and calmly reassure the woman on the other end of the phone so she feels like she has all my attention. “Contractions are coming every five minutes, lasting 50 seconds and baby’s moving lots, waters haven’t broken and you’re not ready to go to the birthcentre yet? Ok thanks for the update, I’ll just catch some sleep and you ring me back when you’re ready.” It’s 9pm.

9.35pm she rings back.

Baby arrives in the pool at 10.45. Sweeeeeeet! And my student aced it. It’s a great feeling watching her just get ‘it’. I really enjoy teaching all the skills, but you can’t teach ‘it’, you either have ‘it’ or you don’t. The world is lucky, she has IT!

You all know what I mean 🤪!

Afterward we had a few issues and had to transfer to the hospital, not in a rush but the easiest way to get there is via ambulance.

My student is handy, as well as ‘it’ she also has her drivers license which means as I have to go in the ambulance I won’t be marooned at the hospital with no way to get home to cover my caseload if someone needs me, all because she is able to drive my car to the hospital.

Usually we have to wake a family member in the middle of the night - rural taxis are hard to come by. If we go back with the ambulance they inevitably get diverted to a job and you get thrown out on the side of the road or you get to see some very random stuff! It also means that you can’t stay with your client at the hospital. So a student solves all these problems.

And who should turn up in the ambulance but the no. 1 husband! I never seem to call for a ride when he is working, so we’ve never worked maternity together before - except for that one time when he caught a baby for me, but that’s another story. Although I will never forget the absolute relief on his face when I turned up at the vital moment. He was in catching mitt position even! He backed off pretty quick. Tonight he did a wonderful job of avoiding holding the baby too 😉. Men - only supremely capable when you aren’t there 🙄.

We were only at the hospital a short time so I popped in to see my other client, she was still contracting but not established in labour yet. She was probably quite surprised to see me at 3 am but I’m sure she appreciated it.

The next afternoon after a few hours sleep the hospital phoned that she was in established labour and I needed to come and take over her care. So a quick dinner with the family, with all of us at the table for once - wow! My Student turned up, I sorted the takeaway coffees and off we went out into the cold.

This birth turned out to have quite a lot of medical complications, so I was pleased to see an obstetrician I really like was on shift. Last time I saw him I was roaring into the hospital for a mum who had been pushing in her car, to see him holding up a blanket in the hallway to give her some privacy while the staff midwife caught the baby. He has ‘it’ too.

My client’s medical issues were compounded by a language barrier. So while the world was going mad around her I tried to explain things in a way she could understand. The hospital staff are famous for speaking in acronyms. It is shorthand they use every day, but it becomes such a habit that they forget the woman has no idea what they are talking about. Combine this medical speak with kiwi slang, English as your second language, throw in a fair amount of pain, add some fear and a lot of beeping machines and you have a recipe for very poor informed consent.

Then consider her poor partner, also foreign, who just keeps getting moved around the room. You need to keep one eye on the dad, spend a moment helping him hold his space and not feel like he doesn’t belong - this weird environment full of action and unknown faces is still the birth of his child and he has a right to be involved no matter what sort of medical emergency is going on.

So our system of having a lead maternity carer that the woman knows well, serves a vital purpose in the hospital setting as well as at home. When the shit hits the fan as they say, we can help with the medical stuff, but we can provide a voice for the woman too. We become the face they look to for translation and reassurance.

Their very little baby eventually arrived just after midnight, probably wondering what all the fuss was about. So today I am off to visit both these women for their postnatal visits. Heading east to the birth centre, then north to the hospital. I will have to go via my students house on the way, she must still be asleep as she’s not answering her phone.

Three babies in four days, there should be a lull now🤞. Mind you it’s better than three babies in two days!

For those of you that asked me about our fight for fair pay, there is still no word from the government on our budget bid, according to the NZ herald today we don’t even feature in the professions that they plan on addressing pay equity for. Interestingly all the other professions have unions. We can’t negotiate a collective employment agreement because we are ‘self employed’ contractors to the government. Contractors that can’t set their own fees. It appears we are to remain invisible.