How's This For a First?!

OH.MY.GOSH. Tonight in clinical I got to watch a birth!!! I got to the hospital and my patient was dilated 3 1/2 cm. I knew there was a chance she would deliver while I was there, but I wasn't counting on it---last week my patient was dilated to 3 cm when I got there and she had only reached 7cm by the time we had to leave for the night.

This week proved to be very different. Before I knew it, my patient was at 5 cm. To everyone's surprise, 30 minutes later she had reached 10 cm and was at +2 station. In other words, it was BABY TIME! In the blink of an eye, the room was prepped for delivery and the doctor was on his way. The patient pushed for all of 25 minutes, and her beautiful baby girl had made her grand entrance into this world! I was in complete awe, to say the least. I stood next to the patient, completely enthralled by the entire delivery. Have you ever seen a placenta? It's pretty sick. But once you get past the fleshy, bloody mass that it is, you can see that it's actually really awesome. Seriously, it's unbelievable to me that our bodies are capable of developing an organ that sustains another life within our body! I just can't explain how amazing the whole experience was! I'm officially hooked. I don't know what I will be doing when I graduate, but this is definitely an option :-)

It's safe to say that I am obsessed with Labor and Delivery. I LOVE it.

Bring on more babies!

-Marissa