Birth and now more paper work

The mama/baby I was waiting on had a lovely home birth this Saturday morning. Fortunately, I got called at 2:40am. Greg was still home , but was planning on going to work and was up. I stumbled out of the bedroom and to the table where he was drinking coffee and on the lap top. He asked what I was doing up. I told him I got called to a birth. "Greeeaat," he said. A bit sarcastic but whatever. I was pleased as punch that I didn't have to call my mom and ask her to come over. Because there's always the chance that she won't answer the phone, and honsetly, I have no one else to call. Event yping that makes my adrenalin start to pump. What am I going to do?
But it was all good. I got into my car and began the 40 minute drive to Chelsea. I got onto 94 and started my Birth Prayer. The one that every midwife says as she drives to a laboring woman. This was the woman that I was worried about having a ginormous baby. Her husband is about 6'4 and probably 300 pounds. She's 5'2. The worst shoulder dystocia I've ever seen in my life happened to a similarly paired couple. Huge daddy, petite mama. All last week after I put everyone to bed, I would lay down and review what to do in case of a shoulder dystocia.
So as i prayed my Birth Prayer, I found myself saying the usual things and then pleading with God: Please don't let her have a huge baby that gets stuck, God, please. Please, please no shoulder dystocia, please. And then it occured to me that God probably doesn't like such sniveling. So I stopped and thought about it. Try again: Okay God, if this woman has a shoulder dystocia., please keep Stacia and I calm and grounded. Keep the fear out of us so that we may use our skills to get the baby out in a safe, timely, healthy manner. Guide our hands and our brains. Thanks.
The snow was falling, falling. Crazy swirly stuff mixed with rain. The air smelled like mud and spring yet the snow was falling all Twilight Zone style. I arrived just after 3am. The mama wanted mostly to be alone, so we left her, only checking on her for heart tones every 30-40 minutes. By 7:30 she was pushing in this great big water tub (a animal water trough actually, a great vessel for having a water birth). She pushed the head out. I couldn't see b/c her bottom was near the wall. Stacia could just feel the head, said she could the posterior shoulder up a bit, but coming. Next contraction, the woman pushed but no baby. Next contraction she pushed, no baby. She pushes like mad, Stacia reaches inside and looks at me and says: Let's get her out of the tub. So I reach under the woman's arm pits (she's on hands and knees) and I pull her up (it's like lifting a truck but you're so in Let's Go! mode that you don't feel it til later when your back is aching). The woman is getting up and rolling over at the same time. And rolling over is just what she needs to move her pelvis because like nothing the baby shoots out of her like a silver fish in a black pool, clear to the other side of the tub. Stacia let's go of the woman and catches the new little boy. He's lovely and healthy and mama is healthy and drank a ton of red raspberry leaf tea during pregnancy and bled so very, very little. I was home by 10:30am.
It didn't occur to me until later in the day that I was at a birth without the "grown ups" present. Meaning, of course, any senior midwife. It was kind of a giggly feeling. Look at us, catching babies. But it felt right. And not scary or like I wasn't prepared for it. I think praying the way I did really helped to ground me. Because in the moment, all you can do is get the baby out. And you try your tricks and keep trying them until something works. And most of the time, no tricks are needed. Babies are just born.
And it really helped to have Christine there, the doula who volunteers to attend just about any home birth. Christine is like the part-time apprentice. She's very helpful and you can bark out orders when you need something quick and she's right on it. She's planning on being a nurse midwife some day. I'm glad we can mold her in our home-birthy hands. She'll be a good midwife in the hospital some day.

So that birth is done. And I'm a bit sad that Idon't have anything lined up until early May when my doula cient is due. I need to do something. I'm day dreaming of cleaning out our back office area and taking on my own clients. But I'm swamped with NARM shite. I just realized yesterday that one of the forms that I have to have each midwife notarize has a blip on there about my having presented to both midwife and notary the following documents:
practice guidlines, an informed consent document, forms and handouts relating to midwifery practice, an emergency care plan. Now how in the hell did I over look this page? Like, these are no small tasks. I have a plan, of course. Practice guidelines, easy, really. Just adapt MANA's basic guidlines, which most midwives live by anyway without thinking about it. You can find informed consent documents on line, I already have forms and such thanks to Tammy's pregnancy jump starting me on these, and an emergency plan?
I don't quite know what that means. I immediately think of taking a big, black Sharpie and writing Emergency Plan: Dial 911. But I don't think that's what they're looking for.
Anyone have a clue?

At any rate, Eamon is napping and I got online to start busting out some documents like the above and all I have done is a little blog therapy.