I'm on a roll! It's 5:30 am. If I get this post done before the next woman comes needing my help, I will have three blogs up in a week. Following the idea of Monday's blog (general news), I'll give you a glimpse into what a work day looks for me at this point in my training. And I will use today's workday as an example.
For me, work starts at 8am. All of us midwives gather together in a circle, hold hands, and sing kumbaya. :) Well, we do circle and hold hands, but we use that time for the old shift to debrief us fresh hands on what is going on. I got handed-over a mom who had recently arrived in labour. She had had a c-section on a previous birth, so that changes our protocol as far as listening to the baby's heart, meaning that I had to listen to the heart tones every fifteen minutes. This gave me no time in between to do appointments, a nice change from the norm. At around mid-morning, mom stood beside the bed and pushed out a beautiful baby girl into dad's arms, allowing me the blessing to stand witness to the process. The next couple of hours were a blur of keeping an eye on mom and baby while trying to fill out all the necessary paperwork.
Though class was supposed to start at one, I only got away from the clinic at 1:30. Making my way two doors down to the school, I scrubbed down in the shower to wash off the blood from the birth, then got food together and went to join the rest of the class.
Today's class was about emergency procedures. All the students, my class, the newbies, and the graduating class were all there. We took the afternoon to enact different emergency scenarios that we face in the clinic, then took the time to critique our actions and reactions, going over every detail both for our benefit and the teaching of the new students.
(4:30 pm) Heading back to the clinic after class, I got my postpartum mom out the door, showing the whole family how to use the car seat properly and helping carry everything to the vehicle. Then another mom came in labour, so I took her vitals, and checked her. She still in early labour, so though we predicted she'd be back before the end of the night, it was still early enough for us to send her home to rest and relax a bit.
(7pm) I took advantage of the lull in activity to start "list". I signed up for different rooms and tasks around the clinic and slowly started going around and cleaning in order to check off the areas I had signed up for.
Finishing my part of list, and enjoying the quiet, I phoned a friend, then took the time to get ready for bed. (11pm) Just as I started brushing my teeth, the doorbell rang. And rang again. Spitting out my toothpaste and throwing down my brush, I ran to the door and was met by a smiling face. Looking around, I took in a couple more young ladies, and finally, doubled over in pain on the step of the van, a pregnant woman, seemingly on the verge of giving birth.
Throughout the next two hours, a couple of disconcerting things popped up, and we decided to transfer her to the hospital to get checked out. I guided the family to the hospital, going up with them to the L&D floor, and even getting to be with the client while in triage. (3am) When it was evident that I could be of no further help, I returned to the clinic to find that two labouring moms had been admitted while I was at the hospital.
I did what I could to help clean up the clinic and keep the laundry going, then sat down to write this blog. I'm kind of wary of making any moves towards going to sleep, because it seems that then is when the mom's ring the doorbell, but I've got to get some rest sometime.
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