Well I had another baby. Not me personally :) but I was there in the thick of it with my catchers mitt on. We got dispatched to an imminent delivery (yeah right, here we go - they are almost never "imminent") at about 10 am and we arrived to find mum bearing down hard and dad looking worried. All thoughts of scooping up mum and making a dash for the hospital evaporated when I could see the baby's head beginning to crown. I'm thinking; oh crap I'm not ready for this! I thought briefly about asking mum if she'd mind hanging on for a few minutes while I got my head organised, but no, this was happening right now. I put on my gloves and my bravest face and leaped into the fray.
Well I'll spare you the detail - but about 4 minutes later we had a healthy little girl who very soon began to scream her lungs out - the single greatest sound you can have when you are delivering kids. Its magic! Mum was fantastic and was really clear about how she wanted things done - dad was still looking worried and I tried reassuring him that both of his girls were in good shape. ABC's were good. We then performed the APGAR assessment at one minute and scored her at 8. Excellent. My partner got the truck organised and the five of us were soon on our way to hospital. Apparently they had been caught out with a labour that progressed a lot more rapidly than expected. As we made our way to hospital, mum looked tired, dad still looked worried (I'm thinking that may have been his default expression) and me? I was grinning like an idiot for the rest of the day.
PS I really thought "leapt" was a word but my blog spell checker wants me to use "leaped". Oh well.
9 comments:
There really is something special about this. It scares the crap out of me but when you must, you must.
I've not had a delivery for over ayear.Now I've read this I know I'll get one next week. Ta.
If things came on quicker than they were expecting for a first baby, then they may want to think about camping out at the hospital for any more ;)
Leapt is a word in English. It's the verb — past tense, past participle for leap. I think leaped is the American common usage. I think...
Great blog by the way. I'm adding you to my links if that's ok? Just let me know if not...
What Kim the vet said.
Iain - sorry to bring that upon you - hope it goes well ;)
Caramaena - Good point and I did suggest that to them!
Kim (the Vet) - thanks for clarifying that, and glad to see I wasn't going completely mad. I like the sound of "leapt" a lot more. Note to self - ignore spell chekka from now on.
Spike - thanks - how's the walking going? Day off today I hope?
Last baby I dealt with, we were told the midwife was on scene, nuch relieved!! Got there, to find the midwife wasn't quite there, she was on the other end of the phone!! Baby had just delivered, was beautiful and pink, all I could do was say 'how beautiful, she is lovely' for about three minutes, whilst I got my head in order to remember what to do!!
Nicenurse x
Well rob you almost did it. Cursed me. Luckily we managed to arrive at the maternity ward with 2 minutes to spare.
Guess it qualifies as a maternitaxi but I was worried for a while.
Nicenurse - despite trying really hard to be all "yeah whatever" being there does leave you with a real buzz doesn't it.
Iain - 2 Minutes? Heaps of time mate! ;)
My closest call was when I was a trainee. All the indicators were to stay on scene and deliver (won't go into details - would take far too long!) but the paramedic I was with said no, scoop and run.
As we walked through the doors of the maternity unit, the midwife bent down just in time to finish delivering the baby and lifted her up for all to see. The doors hadn't even finished swinging closed behind us.
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