As a student Midwife, I was like a sponge - absorbing all this information around women, birth, life, babies. I had ideas and ideals about birth. I thought pushing your own baby into the world was glorious and magical, nothing quite like it. So empowering, I thought. Going into the hospital system, I was shattered. Even traumatised.
This one particular night I was assigned to look after 'Bed 8'. 'Bed 8' was actually a woman, and her name was Leah. Leah was in good labour when I first went in the room to meet her. She had beautiful, strong contractions that bought her to her knees, but after they passed she would rise again and breathe camly and sip some juice. She was coping well. She had her husband in the room, massaging her on her demand. She had juice and barley sugars to keep up her energy and her body was changing positions, moving in a way that brought relief for her. Leah was a part of a public hospital system that was privately owned. So it meant if she wanted to birth her baby in that particular hospital she would need to 'be delivered' by one of the obstetricians.
The obstetrician she chose was the one who I hated with the most passion. I will call him Dr X. He had a piece of paper at the Midwives desk which outlined what times he wanted to be called, what drugs women were to have, and what position he wanted the woman to be in while he 'delivered her'. All 'his women' were to be in lithotomy by the time he walked in the door. If you called him too late or too soon, all hell would break loose.
Anyway, Leah was starting to feel pressure in her bowel. She was progressing perfectly and naturally. She was on all fours as it was helping with the pressure. Her eyes were closed and she was concentrating. The lights were dim. The Midwife I was working with said 'its time to call Dr X' and she scurried out of the room. For the next 20 minutes, Leah was involuntary pushing with her contractions. Her body was working as nature had intended it. I put wet, hot face washers on her back and cold ones on her forehead. Her eyes remained closed as she focused on the miraculous work she was doing.
And then Dr X came in. He switched the lights on and looked at me. “Are you supposed to be looking after her?” I said yes and he roared like a monster “Get her on her back, I am not a bloody vet. How am I supposed to get this child out?” I stood there stunned. The Midwife looked at me and said 'why didn't you get her on her back?' and then went over to Dr X. Once Leah was lying flat on her back, Dr X took the vacuum out of his back pocket. He told the Midwife to set it up for him while he started to do a Vaginal Examination without even asking Leah. Then he reached over to the delivery trolley (which I call the torture trolley. It is there for episiotomies, clamping and cutting cords, and generally just for hurting women and babies) and then proceeded to cut an episiotomy! This again, was without consent. He actually did all of this without even telling her what he was doing. “I'm just getting your baby out now ok. You have to stop yelling now” he grunted, as he put the vacuum cup on her babies head and pulled and pulled until the little blue baby was yanked out from her mother, and slapped on the bum. Cord cut, baby dried and then finally given to Leah. “You need a couple stitches, not many” he lied, still not even looking her Leah’s face. “Thank you” she said to him. I asked Leah what her babies name was. “Rose” she said. I looked at the Midwife who was anxious and listening to every command of the doctor. And then I looked at Dr X, with his bloodied hands and his old, uncaring face. “That’s beautiful” I said to her. “I like that name”. And what I wanted to say that she was a rose between two thorns.
