what a day!

Wow, it was one of those days!
I didn't have a huge list of things I had to do today. I was actually thinking of doing a few jobs that normally get put on hold, and then maybe taking the children to lunch with their "book its". So it was going to be a slow day for once. Well life never seems to go that way for me. It's ok, because I do like to be busy, and if life does slow down too much, I tend to create projects or something that pretty quickly creates busyness.

So 8 am I get a call from Sherry that her client is in labor. Well it was a good day for me to be able to leave.
I got to Bonner's about 10 and the mom was moving right along. The dad was doing well as a coach, so Sherry and I had lots of time to visit and catch up. I was really looking forward to this. I think that's one of the things I love about midwifery. It gives you a good excuse to put everything in life on a back burner, and just have some time helping someone with pain, serving them, and sitting around visiting with friends. What a fun job! Everyone knows that babies being born is a high priority and life can be put on hold for a day. For instance the real estate lady called and needed papers signed, but when I told her I had a mom in labor, she figured out a way we could do it with a quick fax. Babies take priority! So it gives me a break from normal stressful life and puts me in another world for a few hours.
So in between checking heart tones, and keeping mom comfy, Sherry and I discussed a thousand different ways to make the job of midwifery a money making proposition, (which it's really not), or churches and their problems, or teen agers and how we wish we could just sleep until they are past this stage, our grown children worries., and running large households (sherry has 12 children)
It was about 1 or 2 pm that she was already dilated to 8. But when hours were passing and their was no change, and labor was slowing down, we began to wonder if we had a stuck baby. Since we were 1 hour from the hospital in either direction, we thought it best to transport rather then waiting till we had a baby in distress.
Well without giving too many details and breaking confidentiality, I will end it with saying she had a C section, about midnight. Baby was not going to make it through her pelvis. 150 years ago both she and baby would have died, but it's so nice we have hospitals for the few times it's needed.
Sherry dressed up to go into the C sectionhe last time I transported to this hospital it ended in a C section too. That trip was a bit more exciting though. Our "scary" birth, to say the least. It was a home birth way up by the Canadian border up from Bonners. Making a trip to any hospital that could help us was 90 min away. Birth was going great. Mom had dilated to 8 and FHT were fine. For some strange reason after only 10 min of checking baby, I checked again. What I found was FHT of 70. Changed positions, but this drop was in between ctx. No difference no matter what position. Then I couldn't find heart tones. ( thats a scary monment!) When you are in this situation you have to decide how much time you want to take looking for heart tones, or getting on the o2, or seeing if you could deliver the baby in less time then it would take to get to the hospital or do you just want to jump in the car or do you call an ambulance ? It's a terribly long drive without knowing how baby is doing! By the way this was one of my 1st births of being without supervision.
This is a classic example of how someone could easily loose their baby with an unassisted birth too. Everything looked really good, she was dilating fine, but it was a cord issue. So we stopped in the Bonners hospital, and all they could do for us was get us a ride in the ambulance to Sandpoint. It was nice though to stop there so we could hear FHT, get an IV in her. The heart tones were there, but still dipping seriously at times.
So we ended up in the Sandpoint hospital and within 10 min they had the baby out. She had a very, very thin cord. It was like a pencil. This couple is always telling people I'm the best midwife, but I'm sure any midwife would have done the same thing. I'm just glad they had a midwife, and they have a beautiful little girl now.
So back to my day:
I left the hospital about 1 am. I am of course very very tired, and of course I am seeing deer almost constantly, I hit 2 snow storms where you could hardly see the road, I saw oodles of Elk. One time there was a whole herd right in the road. We also had to throw in some fog on this dangerous drive home.
At least the roads weren't icy!

My keep alert drinks: I got one cup of coffee with a packet of hot chocolate in it and one cup of green tea. It worked too, enough caffine to keep me awake.
So I got home at 3 am to that very familiar horrible smell. A skunk must have been under or very near our house again. Oh it's so bad that it hurts your eyes and makes it hard to sleep. Yuck!
So then I climb into bed, but I'm quite awake from coffee and adrenalin.
Before you know it, it's another day starting again where I left off..............