Assalamu Alaykum! (Peace be upon you all!)
No, this is not about my first born son. We are still way too early for that! haha. This is about the first baby boy I delivered (or helped or assisted in delivery) during our 24-hour duty at the Labor Room-Delivery Room (LRDR) in PGH.
Well, the experience was indeed something to really cherish. Simply witnessing a baby being born right in front of your eyes, and hearing his first loud cry is simply ... see? I can't even find the right word for it! Just SubhanaAllah! (Praise be to Allah!) Life indeed is an amazing gift only He can give.
The story was:
We started our duty at exactly 7AM last November 29, 2014. At first we were all clueless as what to do. We were the first group in our block to be on 24H duty. so we practically don't have any idea, until later on, we started learning things, starting doing things that are requested of us to do (I will publish a separate post about LRDR duties in sha Allah). Everything was going smooth towards the end of the day until by the tick of 6PM, there came the havoc. Literally, we were in a state of calamity! Two high-risk patients were rushed to the LR, one was a pregnant mother in Thyroid storm, she was immediately directed to the available operating room to deliver the baby. Another mother in labor who came in was pregnant with a fetus with heart anomaly. She too, would need an intense monitoring and assessment for delivery. All these happening while we are attending to other high-risk patients as well: a 16-yr old placenta previa totalis, an acardiac twin pregnancy (a very rare case!), and a couple of ectopic pregnancies, one of them already ruptured and all of them would need immediate attention when things go down the hill. And the horrible news? We only have two operating rooms down there.
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My first time to deliver a baby boy (^_^)
*photo taken and published with permission from the parents |
Everyone in the LRDR--OBGYN residents, interns, clerks and well, even us ICCs!--were working on a fast-paced during those critical moments. And that was when I was assigned to help on something. Of the five ICCs on duty that night, I was the third on the list. Karl already had his assist in delivery, and Meggie is already monitoring her own patient. And being the next guy on the line, I was assigned to do the "labor watch" for Agnes (not her real name) whose already been in labor for some hours already. I started helping out my Clerk-buddy (Ate Bea) at around 10PM. She instructed me on how to read the fetal tocograph, to monitor the frequency and strength of each uterine contractions, to monitor the mother's vitals and the fetal heart tones, how to resuscitate and to report when the contractions would become frequent at 2-3 minutes intervals. I thought it was easy, so I took over while she ran to the OR to help on her other cesarean case.
This is Agnes' 2nd pregnancy and delivery. I thought it wont be long until Agnes would deliver her baby because her bag of waters already ruptured hours ago, I learned. But soon I will realize how wrong I am.
As I was doing all those monitoring every hour, I keep on observing Agnes, I would often try to engage her on a light conversations--how was her first pregnancy, how's her first child doing at school, what's her daily activities, what TV shows she love to watch-- which she would gladly reciprocate, but only for a short time. I don't have to guess, I know... I can literally see that she is feeling so much pain and discomfort during all those times. Every time her contractions increases, I could see her face wince with pain. I could already see myself imagining that pain, and boy, I would really never know. She would at time exhale some painful shouts when its already unbearable for her to which I would tell her to just inhale-exhale, and reassure her that soon, really soon baby will come out and everything would be fine. She would nod in agreement with a soft smile what some line of tears come out from her determined eyes. To which I realized the following thoughts:
"Such are the strong determination and conviction every mother have that not one single man, perhaps even a hundred of us, could ever challenge to par with."
To avoid her seeing me going through my deep-thought-self, I would hastily pretend to check her vitals, or pretend to check her IV drips. Or sometimes, I would listen to her baby's fast-paced, tiny muffled heart sounds. rub-dub-rub-dub-rub-dub. Earlier, Agnes already told me that her baby is a boy. Listening through my stethoscope, I could already feel the excitement in his heart to come out to this world and test his untested lungs. He is about to experience the worst possible stress he could ever imagine: delivery. And I keep on saying to him in silent whispers, come out now, baby boy, don't give your poor mother another series of pain to feel. Well, not until a few more hours perhaps (hehe)
---sorry guys, my long-post syndrome is striking again -_- I just can't help myself. please bear with me---
My other group mates were already doing other many things while I stayed with Agnes' side almost the entire night (I left her for some minutes to help my group mates, and I end up being scolded for leaving my patient -_- bad. really bad). Anyway, so we (me and Agnes) were doing all these waiting until her contractions started to become more frequent. It was not until half-an-hour before 4AM that Agnes' OB declared her ready for delivery. I did a last run-down of vitals and fetal assessment, reported my findings (while the OB confirming if I'm right or not), then Agnes was wheeled to the next adjacent room (the delivery room) and we started to scrub in. The OBs are already preparing for her delivery. And I will be the one to pull and deliver Agnes' second child.
This, I have to emphasize, is my very first time.
While donning my gown, I kept on re-playing in my mind all those tidbits of infos in the books on how to deliver a baby. Honestly, I was so nervous that I had a hard time donning my gloves that well.
"What if the baby slipped! What if I break his neck or clavicles? What if? What if?" Yeah, such are the thought dwelling in my mind that I have to fight. Good thing though, my other two group mates who already delivered a baby earlier were cheering me up, directing me what to do:
"Support the pelvic wall, pull the head carefully, restitute (kind of twisting the body of the baby), support the back, pull down to deliver the anterior shoulder, pull up while sliding your free hand to support the body of the baby, and catch! Then the Pedia people will do their job (#UnangYakap)."
Ha! How I wish I could remember all those things in slow motion, because in reality, everything up there from "pull" to "catch" comes in a one single swift event. You simply have to be ready for it! And yes that was what just happened: in a single moment, I was already holding that little boy exhaling her first loud cry, and I was like:
"It's a boy! It's a boy!"
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| Of course it is! She already told us that! |
After we delivered the baby boy, we started the other procedures: delivery of the placenta and suturing the lacerations (episiotomy). After that, I never let the chance to give the baby his first photoshoot with his "delivery boy" haha. *the photo above was taken by a friend, with permissions from the mother of course.
Before I ended my 24 hour duty that day, I went to Agnes who was then recuperating while feeding her new baby. I bid farewell to her and to her baby boy. She smiled at me then and uttered the simplest yet most-fulfilling words I could ever hear that day:
"Salamat Doc" (Thank you, doc) =)
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Indeed it was an exhausting ride: from the start of monitoring the mother's vitals and hours of waiting until delivery of the baby. It was exhausting for us doctors and soon-to-be doctors, but it was waaaaaaay up the limit of exhaustion for the mothers of course. But all those stress and exhaustion are all wiped away with that single cry we hear from the baby we just helped deliver.
Indeed every single mother in this world deserved to be in highly respected and loved for all those pain they have to undergo just for us to be born. We have no right, whatsoever, to hurt our mothers in any way, as we can never ever ever ever repay that single moment when she bore that unimaginable pain of our birth.
So go back and tell your mother how sorry you are and how much you love her. (#dictatorMode)
Regardless to say though, but I still have to emphasize: Indeed Allah is the Greatest Creator. He gives life in such an amazing way for us to learn and reflect what we have. This boy is just a tiny dot among the sea of lives we all have, and we all started from this single day when we were born: unscathed, untouched, no sins in our hands. And now here we are. What have we done with that life that He gave us? Are we using it for the best according to His commands? Or are we using it to fill our own personal desires in this world?
Perhaps that experience was indeed something for me to reflect upon, Alhamdulillah (All Praise be to Allah). I will surely cherish this memory and learning experience: My first baby boy.
:)
Again, sorry for the long post!
Hope you enjoyed the ride though :)
Salam kasilasa!
Anak iluh
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