my week "at work"

Ah, BIRTH.

(btw, that is not one of my clients and that is not me catching a baby)

Last Wednesday we had this cold front come through that brought with it a lot of rain. I had two women due in May. One of the 5th and the other on the 27th. Both went into labor on the 16th. Both having their third babies, both with histories of a very fast second stage. One about an hour away from the other.
Let me back up though and explain my lack of sleep during the week. Monday night was one of those late-night discussion nights where husband and self have time to be grown ups and actually discuss our lives, how we miss each other, how we hate some parts of our lives, and how we can fix it. One of those discussions where all my frustrations come out and I cry for a bit. It ended well as it always does and we went to bed at 3:30am, I woke at 6:30am.
Tuesday night I couldn't sleep. I fell asleep at 2am and got a phone call at 5am from one client telling me her water just broke. Up for the day. Took S to school and then drove to client's house to check on baby and discuss broken waters protocols (she wasn't having any contractions yet).
Left there and went to the other client's house for a prenatal. She also was not in labor and was feeling no signs on contractions (I had stayed the night at her place the previous Saturday for some cookin' labor that eventually petered out).
Went home, tried to get E down for a nap, but nothing doing. By 3:30pm, I got a call from broken waters client telling me she was contracting every 6 minutes.
I made my way out there (a little over an hour in rush hour and construction) and I got a call from my midwife friend who was supposed to be assisting me that her own client was in labor with another threatening to start up too. Damn storm!
I called another midwife to see if she could be with my other client "just in case". Sure, she said. But she was wiped out from being up all night (in the storm) with her own client who had a baby at dawn.
I was in the first client's house 10 minutes before client number 2's husband called me to tell me his wife was contracting every 6 minutes and they're really strong.
Argh!
Adrenalin pumping! I sent my own assistant and other midwife to client number 2.
I called 2 different apprentice midwives (who work for another midwife) to see if one of them could assist me (I like having two pairs of hands at a birth). But neither could due to a funeral. But they were lovely-sweet and made arrangements for yet another apprentice (whom I had never met before)to drive an hour to help me.
Sure enough, this wonderful women shows up, keeps respectfully quiet knowing my client might feel funny with a new person present, and works like a well-greased machine with me.
There was a house-full of people and small children at this labor. They're all young. In their mid 20s. Laughing, going outside for a smoke, talking a lot. The laboring mom didn't seem to mind at all. There is no way I could've labored with all that hullabaloo around me, but she got her groove on and stayed there. I was only there 2 hours before she reached 9+ centimeters. There was a lot of picture taking, pizza delivery, and cam-cording, and this mom just silently labored in a big pool of water.
When it came time to push, she got annoyed with the water and went to her bedroom and laid on the floor.
She had a little bit of an anterior lip of cervix that popped out of the way with a little help through two contractions and the baby was born in no time.
After the birth and making sure everyone was stable, I actually got to watch the last 10 minutes of the recorded birth off the camera. That was surreal. I've seen so many damn birth shows and birth movies that to see myself on a screen catching a baby was strange.
It was a lovely birth though. This woman's first homebirth. She did great and was so proud of herself. A truly fun family to work with.
In the meantime, I had no idea what was going on with my other client. I was so tired that I was hoping that my midwife friend had already caught the baby and was working on postpartum cleanup just as I was.

When I got a chance, I called my assistant who said everything was cooking, 2-3 minutes contractions, but not much was happening. My client declined having a vaginal exam and the baby sounded great, so they were just letting her do her thing.
This was this woman's 3rd child, and 3rd planned homebirth.

So I finished up postpartum care with client #1 and drove to client #2 by midnight.
My midwife friend hung out for about 45 minutes then left. I finally checked my client and she was 6cm during a contraction, but then the cervix felt like an empty sleeve (a very stretchable sleeve, but totally slack) between contractions. The baby's head was still very high. This wasn't making sense for her and I worried. This woman has a lovely roomy pelvis. An asynclitic baby for her shouldn't pose much of a problem. Might make things slower, but not make a baby stay so high for so long despite strong, regular contractions. I tried to feel any suture lines or fontanels and could only feel smooth, smooth head. Her labor began to space out after a while and she was exhausted. We tried some duck walking and position changes, but the baby just wasn't budging.
Around 5am, my client and I talked about what could be holding the baby back. She knows a lot about the body and birth and was thinking what I was. I really felt like there was some cord issue going on as well as a mal-positioned head. She decided she wanted to go to the hospital. My first transport. But thank God it wasn't an emergency.
At the hospital they were okay. One snarky doctor who wanted my client to have Pit to get strong contractions, despite her already having 20+ hours of strong labor with a 3rd baby. The doctor said some horrible line: "You may THINK you've been having strong contractions. But I don't know you from anyone off the street. As far as I'm concerned, your labor has JUST BEGUN."
My client said, "This is my 3rd baby.I think I know what real contractions feel like. I'm worried that something is holding back my baby. Can we get an ultrasound or something and try to see what is going on in there?
Nope.
But my client was adamant about staying off Pit and she actually started contracting regularly again at the hospital. After a little while, the husband told me to go home and get some sleep. There was nothing going on. My client told the docs that she would prefer a cesarean over hours of Pit and then a section.
I went home and paid my nephew's teenage girlfriend to skip school so that she could watch E for me so I could sleep. What 18 year old senior who is gonna graduate in 2 weeks wouldn't take $50 to skip school to watch Caillou?
So I slept for 3 hours. I woke up to a phone call from client's husband saying the doctor broke my client's water despite baby still being -3 station. The water was full of meconium. So they decided to do a non-emergency cesarean.
I got a call a little while later saying a healthy baby was born. His head was asynclitic and he had a very tight cord around his neck. I guess short enough and tight enough to prevent him from wanting to engage.
Wow. I was thankful I listened to my gut. I was really feeling like this baby KNEW it shouldn't come down any more. What if it's head was flexed just fine but then went into serious distress due to a short, noose-like cord? Babies have a lot of wisdom.
Thank God for healthy babies and healthy moms. And thank God for the 7 different women/midwives/assistants who did what they could to help me in 24 hours.

I ended up going to work that night on a grand total of 8-9 hours of sleep in 4 days. I came home at 11pm and puked my guts out all night thanks to a horrible stomach bug.
Friday I had to do postpartum visits. Saturday and Sunday I finally got two decent night's sleep.
Sunday during church I got called away by a client who is 27 weeks who started bleeding vaginally.
Oy vey!!!
So I spent an afternoon in a Detroit hospital, but thankfully everything worked out just fine. Placenta high and intact, baby wonderful and healthy. Just a cervical blood vessel popped and bled a bit.
No one due until the end of June.
I'm ready for a little breather.

Mudpuppies

We had monsoon-style rain all day Wednesday. My kids went out at the end of it to play. I was working at the computer for a half hour before I checked on them again (I could HEAR them,so you don't think I'm completely neglectful).
Those chumps had found a puddle, converted what had been newly growing grass into a mudpit and then smeared mud all over the garage side door,oh, AND little E decorated my car by throwing clumps of mud pancakes all over the hood and headlights.

I carried them both into the bathroom to get cleaned up. S had the nerve to complain(all indignant and in her Queen Bee voice) that the "tub must be dirty, because it's scratching my bottom!" There must have been a 1/4" of dirt on the bottom of the tub.
What turkeys! I drove around all the next day with 3" thick mud pies dried and stuck to the hood of my car.


In other news, it's Mother's Day weekend. As usual, I'm taking my mom (and kids) to the farmer's market for a walk-thru. I usually buy her a lovely flat of flowers or two for her yard, but now my yard IS her yard now that she's living upstairs. Seems a little strange to buy HER flowers to plant in MY yard.
And as usual, I have NO extra money to buy anything. It always works out like this on Mother's Day weekend. Bad timing. All our bills go through the second week of the month, leaving us with about $57 until the next Friday.
And I just paid $47 to fill my gas tank yesterday. Grr.

Kombucha cha cha

Anyone else on the Kombucha gravy train?

Everyone I run into is trying to force their Kombucha babies on me.
And now I'm pushing my own babies onto any takers.

It's not bad though. The kids and husband like it, as long as it's cold.
Can't tell if it's keeping any of us healthier yet, but we're still drinking the stuff.
It's fun for science-experiment-style entertainment.

I let S stay home from school today because she was this sobbing mess of a girl this morning. One of those weepy, irrational type of mornings. I have those now and then and I can definitely remember having them as a kid. She said she couldn't sleep last night and stayed up a long time reading. Then woke this morning with a really bad headache. So I made her stay in bed. (Yeah right.)
My mom was watching E anyway, because I had one prenatal to do this morning.
I came home to find E and S tearing around the house, both beds unmade (I made them before I left~grr!) and children laughing. My mom informed me, "S isn't sick at all, you know."
As if I didn't know that when I said she could stay home.
S hid when I came in, as if I would be mad. I told her life is too short to worry about missing one darn day of school. Besides, it's beautiful outside and I don't have to pick her back up from school today.

It's a Sunny Slacker Day here today. On a Monday to boot.
And we're going to enjoy it.
And start another batch of Kombucha.

What I do at "Work"

When I'm not driving through the tri-county area burning $3.19 gallons of gas doing prenatals by day, I'm at Work.
Work for Mr. Senior Guy.
I've been transferring episodes of Benny Hill from a 7 hour VHS tape to a DVD (in one hour increments), only to then transfer the one hour DVD episodes to VHS. That way Mr. Senior Guy can have each hour on it's own VHS tape.
Never mind that he already has the entire Benny Hill DVD box set. Never mind that he has about 20 one hour episodes on tape. On April Fool's Day, BBC America had a Benny Hill marathon and this is how I've been spending my evenings.
That and recording and then re-recording Great Spy Stories from History International.
Sigh.

Tits and ass and WWII espionage makes for a long night. Especially when the volume is ear-splitting loud to accomodate Mr. "Hearing Aid Doesn't Work for Shite and I Won't Wear It Anyway".

All right, off to remove contacts, brush teeth and crawl into bed.
And to try to pry Benny Hill theme song off on subconsciousness before I doze off. I do NOT want Benny Hill dreams, not tonight, thank you.