The blink of an eye when I breathed through your body

Sunday morning I showed up to L&D for a twenty-four hour call.

As background, I spent the summer between my MSI and MSII year working at the West Roxbury VA as staff on a nursing service. One benefit of working with nurses for a summer is that you learn the power of bringing food for a weekend shift. So, I came prepared for the day with bribes (in the form of baked goods) for the nurses. I was happy to see that cranberry-orange bread was enough to have me welcomed to the team.

The floor was quiet when I arrived with no women in labor, so I spent my first few hours getting to know the nurses and the midwife on the floor. This is a rare chance as everyone normally has their work-plate full and can't spend much time getting to know the students who pass through; I liked the opportunity to get to know them a little bit more as people.

Around 3 hours into my shift, a patient arrived! The patient, however, was being followed by the midwife. Students are not normally involved with midwife-patients; my hopes were dashed for a brief second. But, perhaps due to the low-volume nature of the day, the midwife on call told me if it was alright with the patient, it was alright with her for me to observe.

I walked into the patient's room and introduced myself. (As another aside, I enjoy the intentional "at home"-feel of the L&D rooms - the lighting is softer, each room comes with a jacuzzi, and sometimes I swear you can hear smooth jazz playing quietly in the background). She was here for the birth of her second child - she had delivered a baby girl years ago with a midwife in this very hospital. She was surprisingly friendly for someone having contractions every five minutes, and welcomed me to stay for the whole process of the labor. With the floor empty of other patients, I took a seat in one of the overstuffed chairs and used my iPhone to start timing her contractions.

We spent the next 4 hours talking with each other - she asked me my birthday and quizzed me as to whether my personality traits matched with my astrological sign (they did, she concluded). She shared with me about her move to America for opportunity; how she learned English; how she met her current husband; what it was like to be a mom.

Somewhere around 4pm her contractions were 2 1/2 minutes apart and the pain became overwhelming for her - she kept her eyes squeezed shut and could no longer talk in full sentences. She made the decision to get an epidural. I watched as the anesthesiologist on call tried once, twice, three times to get the needle into the correct space in her spine. With a sigh of relief, he succeeded in finding the epidural space; within minutes of medications, she was back to her bubbly and friendly self.

She slept for a while and I used the opportunity to read. Somehow 12 hours total had gone by and the shift of nurses changed. A new midwife came on call - she introduced herself and I marveled at the mirth and gentleness she approached the patient with - she smiled as she described how the tentative schedule of the night would go - the excitement and expectation of was building.

A few more hours passed - at some point, the midwife came back into the room and sat down in another one of the over-stuffed chairs. We all chatted for a while longer, and then with minimal introduction, the midwife stood up and began to prep the patient and the bed for the delivery. She worked effortlessly and with such a calmness that if I had no context to the event, I would have thought she was a massage therapist.

She dimmed the lights until it seemed as if the room was lit by candlelight. Then, with a similar confidence and gentleness that she had approached the entire night with, she softly gave the patient instructions - when to breathe, when to bear down, when to relax. I stood near the foot of the bed, lending support to the patient's leg and watching in awe. 10 minutes of pushing passed with a similar rhythm - breathe, bear down, relax, repeat. I'd almost forgotten what the end goal was until the crown of the baby's head appeared.

That's the last part I remember clearly - everything from there on happened so quickly - within a few second, the entire baby was out and into mom's arms. 10 fingers - 10 toes - a healthy, crying baby girl.

~~~
There is a song by Minnesotan Folk Artist - Peter Mayer - called "Holy Now". In the song, he remarks about how when he was growing up, his parents brought him to church where he heard stories of the divine and miracles retold from the bible; he recounts feeling sad as a child that miracles didn't still happen; it took reaching adulthood for him to realize that miracles were everywhere, "the challenging thing becomes, not to look for miracles, but finding where there isn't one... Everything, everything, everything is holy now."

I am filled with gratitude for my first experience on L&D. The slowness of the day afforded me the ability to be fully present with someone during a sacred event in their life - the calm persona of the midwife helped me feel at ease and enjoy the miracle of being human and being born. We are delivered into this world - the more I hold that thought, the more I agree with Peter - everything feels like a miracle.

~~~
The next morning, before leaving the hospital sleepy-eyed, I went back into the patient's room (now in post-partum) to see how she was doing, and to say thank you for the gift of being able to participate. She seemed surprised that I was thanking her... I guess it's hard to explain how, but for a third year med student, the reminder that life is bigger than writing your notes correctly / knowing the cardinal movements / nailing your shelf's, and that doctoring is much more about being a human being - present with another human being - well, it's a miracle in itself.

(that's all for now).