This was my first shift back on the ward since I resigned and I felt nervous.
I didn't want to go up to the high risk floor, but they changed my allocation and so had to venture up there, alone. I entered through the heavy doors, and they shut slowly and heavily behind me. The Midwife was sitting on her wheelie chair at the front desk, chewing on a pen, her face looking anxious and tired. There was a buzz of bright lights, doctors in their blues and overworked midwives. The chaos and stress was evident and the sickly red walls of the midwives desk made the chaos and the buzz even louder. Someone was shouting out if the anaesthetist was ready in theatre for the twins and another woman was being wheeled passed me, apparently going to a ceaserean as well – her baby had no stomach and one kidney. I felt overwhelmed about what I had just walked into. I felt scared. I could never imagine how a labouring woman would have felt safe walking through those heavy doors.
Then a familiar Midwife came through the doors, and I almost went running up to her to hug her I was so glad to see her. She came to the desk with the noise and the buzz and the chaos and told everyone to stop panicking. She was quickly approached by one of the afternoon staff who was concerned that 'the primi in 7 only dilated 2 cms in 4 hours'. The midwife told her to just leave her alone and stop worrying about everything and she quickly allocated her to me and said 'people in this place don’t know what midwifery led care is. You must show them. And I'll keep the doctors away'. Then she was swamped with chaos and concern and scurried off to deal with the mess.
Tracy was fantastic. She was labouring well. Contracting 4-5 minutely but they were strong, I was not concerned at all about her 'slow progress'. She had a dose of pethidine before my shift and was a bit sleepy. She went to sit on the toilet and ended staying there for 2 hours and when I went in there she said she wanted to push.
The midwife in charge wanted her to get up into the room seeing as though there was no birth stools in the whole ward. She stood up and could not sit down so I told her that I would just do the birth here in the bathroom and I will tell her when I need her.
She pushed well, and she stretched well and slowly, but slowly she pushed a large head out. The next contraction enabled her baby’s body to be completely born. I held this beautiful baby girl in my arms and passed her to her mother, who was ecstatic and in awe.
Baby was born quite quickly for a first baby – a few hours later we found out that her beautiful baby daughter, was 4.7 kg, and Tracy had only a small first 1st degree tear that didn't need stitches. She said to me as we talked later how amazing it was that her body knew what position to be in to easily birth her big baby. I felt so inspired by her, and how once she was out of the 'labour room' and into the dimmed, private, bathroom, she opened up, and was able to birth her baby undisturbed.
