Postpartum

It seems I'm in a dry spell of good labor/delivery stories. Hopefully this weekend will be busy enough I can get in a couple deliveries. I'm more in my element I think, when I'm working labor than when I'm on postpartum. And on most nights, I would rather be working labor. Last night, though, I felt like I was in the right place that night. She had had a c-section with her 3rd baby at 35 weeks because he was measuring small for his gestational age and his amniotic fluid level was critically low. He came out screaming, small, and had the cord wrapped around his neck 3 times and a true knot. He's one lucky little boy. But, his lungs weren't mature, so he was on oxygen and working a bit to breathe. About 1:00 a.m., om was getting miserable: she was itchy beyond belief (something I really empathize with) was hurting and in need of pericare, plus anxious about her baby. So after about 1 1/2 hours, I get her itching under control, got an order for toradol (love that pain med), got her cleaned up and tucked into bed. She had been too uncomfortable and wiped out to actually get up out of bed for pericare. Part of it I think was earlier she had gotten up very soon after surgery and it was catching up with her. Her husband had gone home to be with their younger kids, so I spent a good deal of time talking with her. Anyway, she finally agreed that she needed to rest and decided to go to sleep. About 45minutes later, he baby is wearing out from working so hard to breathe and after a chest x-ray, we see he has a pneumothorax. So he needed to be transferred to a higher level facility. That of course sent mom over the edge and she spent a good 2 hours in the nursery with her son. It's amazing the strength mothers get when their children need them. We gave her time with her son, answered all her questions the best we could and she finally relaxed as much as possible in the moment. She even joked that her son would be able to say he got to fly in a helicopter as a newborn. He'll be fine after a couple days and she was very thankful just that we took the time to sit with her until her husband could find a sitter for their 2 other kids. Makes you realize that sometimes all it takes is a little time to make a difference to someone.