November 13, 2007

Surprise

Usually you can tell when a patient comes in for possible labor if they really are laboring. Usually. I had a 15 year old 8th grader come in laboring this weekend and I would have sworn she wasn't doing anything. She was 35 weeks, and acted like I was really annoying her texting while I was assessing her. You never would have been able to tell she was even having contractions because she kept talking, texting, and never even made a face. I checked her cervix, expecting nothing spectacular and surprise! she was 9cm. I've never been this shocked before. I called the doc and I'm not sure he believed me when he walked into the room and saw that she was on the phone. We did a drug screen, which was negative, because her behavior was so bizarre. No one had ever seen anyone appear to be this comfortable without an epidural. Anyway, we start pushing after she's 10cm and only then did she ever act like she was uncomfortable, but she was still more interested in talking on the phone. She was very rude once the head was crowning, and not the justifiable rude, but inappropriate. What should have been a quick delievery took awhile because she wouldn't listen to how to push and wasn't really trying. After about 40 minutes of pushing, and texting on the phone in between contractions, she delivered her daughter. Since she was early,the baby was having some difficulty breathing, so the nurse needed to take her to the nursery for further assessment. Mom was on the phone as soon as she came out, never even looked at her. The baby care nurse held the baby up so she could see her. The grandmother told her "Hey, the nurse is trying to show you your daughter" and you know what she said? "I see it" with the nastiest tone of voice and look on her face. It. She then went back to talking with her boyfriend on the phone, and she told him the baby was ugly. I know she's only 15, but who says that about their baby? The fob was there, but wasn't the boyfriend, and was significantly more interested in this baby than she was. And I would have pinned him as being one of these 15 year old dads who never had anything to do with the baby. It's just such a sad situation. Maybe she'll be more interested in the baby as time goes on, but I doubt it. She's only 15. I'm sure the grandmother will raise the baby, and believe me when I say that that probably won't be a whole lot better. But man, I wish you could have seen this girl and how whe acted during labor. It was unbelievable. It does seem that the young one either do really well with labor pain and have short labors, or they are extremely out of control and end up with a c-section. Who knows, maybe biologically, (not emotionally) our bodies were made to birth babies at a young age. But I can tell you that I sure wouldn't have been ready. Hell, I wasn't ready when I had my first and to be honest, I'm still not ready (ha ha).

1 comment:

RetroB said...

Hi Nurse Lochia--

I read on your blog that you have had positive experiences using Pampers with your kids in the past, and I thought that you’d be a perfect fit for a project we’re working on with Pampers Stages. We’re looking for the honest opinions of parents, and I wanted to know if you’d like to review the product on your site. If you are, we’ll send you a Jumbo pack of the correct size along with a tub of corresponding wipes. Please email me if you’re interested, we’d love to have your voice included.

Thanks so much, Victoria@rocketxl.com