Circle of Life

I got to deliver my first baby today!! It was AWESOME, and ridiculously messy. seriously projectile amniotic fluid, blood and urine. everywhere.

here's the story--after what was an apparent drought for my time in the Ob/gyn today was a torrential downpour of babies, and pregnant women and ob/gyn consults. after morning report this morning we basically hit the ground running. The other med student Laura and I were running around like chicken's with our heads cut off. Amy the resident had the first baby early this morning, laura delivered the 2nd and i got the 3rd. My mom was on her 7th kid and was in labor for about 20 hours by the time i got to see her. once she finally got started it was quick. so fast that the attending was helping me tie my gown and barely had time to put on his own gloves before the baby basically walked out of this woman's vagina. not before spraying a gush (yes that is the technical term) of fluid all over the attending, of course not on the side of any of the people who were gowned and covered. the baby girl made her way out and i caught her :) you wouldn't believe how slippery those little suckers are.

the rest of the day went by incredibly quickly. the thing that really got me today though was a girl my age who came in in active labor. she was only 22 1/2 weeks along. she ended up delivering a baby girl who lived for about 5 hours. going in with the physician to call the time of death was almost an out of body experience. i've never seen a baby so tiny, she barely weighed 1 pound. all of her little parts perfectly formed but not ready to be exposed to the big bad scary world. it wasn't due to anything the mom did wrong either. it seems so unfair, especially when we've got other mom's who almost don't deserve to have their healthy babies when they come in testing positive for all sorts of drugs, and neglecting to get prenatal care. i'm not really sure how to convey how i feel about all of this. it still needs to digest a bit.

another day of surgery tomorrow and on call til wednesday.