5th/15th Catch!

Talk about a busy shift!!! My 5th handle happened on my scheduled 16+ hour double shift day--Day/Swing. 17 yo Rowelyn was endorsed to my Day Shift, and I happened to be the lucky winner. She had come in the night before (reporting a false BOW rup), at 40 6/7 weeks GA, only 2-3cm dilated, and had been given Castor Oil to help stimulate labor. When she was endorsed to me, she was 7cm+, and was laboring well on the birth ball, and SROM happened shortly.

All throughout labor, she had this distinct personality. At times I couldn't figure out if she was just being a grumpy, teenage know-it-all queen or what, but she had this way of very often with or without contractions holding her hand out in a "stop" symbol (telling me to wait). At times it could be a little frustrating, but I sooner-to-later realized that it was just the only way she could express herself with the amount of energy she had and not be snappy. She actually coped with labor with a surprising grace, though it took a while for her to get the whole 'pushing effectively' thing.

Upon IE at 7:30am, she was almost Fully, but with no progress after multiple position changes, and breathing through ctx, and her finally becoming exhausted from a long labor, I inserted a D5LR IV via the cephalic vein, and which helped take the edge off almost immediately.

At 9:20am, there was still no progress, and the 12 hours had elapsed, and I had resigned that transport was probably imminent. However, her long labor and castor oil had taken it's toil, so we instructed her to take a shower, change into a new duster, and we would do another IE before transport.

She had just come back and prepped for another IE, when I walked in, and low and behold there was 1cm head visible!! Talk about a shocker!! I called for assistance (unlike in America, shouting in the Birth Room by the midwives is non-negotiable...though I prefer to talk quietly when possibly ;p), which came...and at 10:19am, a beautiful baby GIRL--Jenwel Mae--was born!!! Half-way through pushing, fetal heart tones went down, so we administered O2 via NC, which brought them back up to normal.

APGAR Scores of 6 & 8 and she weighed 6.0 lbs and was 21.5" long. Rowelyn immediately proved to be an excellent and natural mother, and I am quite proud of her, and her bana, who was a crackup at times.

Interestingly, she went to a hilot quite a few times (against advice), and when her placenta was born, the entire amnion (membrane) tore completely off, and it took 6 full minutes with hemostats to get the extremely friable (tearing) membrane out... That was an experience!! Hopefully she learned her lesson...

(At 3 day checkup)

Another interesting experience: Her birthing supplies bill equated around $20 (which is a lot of money for them), and they didn't even half a half of that. We encouraged them to call family and see if they could get a loan, and their phone was dead! I offered to let them use mine, but the bana couldn't remember the number... Thankfully, we were able to round up a charger, and he was able to contact family members, to no avail...so we allowed them to make payments.

Then, discharge vitals showed the baby had tachypnea (fixed by nursing) and the mom had tachycardia (fixed by eating)...which meant they needed to stay until those vitals normalized. Now, unfortunately, food = Money: all of which, they had just paid us, which meant they couldn't go home... do you see a problem here??

At the time, all I could do was laugh, because it was a slew of singular financial difficulties one after another... So, we gave her some bread and advised her to drink milo, and she was discharged shortly thereafter at 6pm (the one nice thing with working 2 shifts! I got to endorse her to myself!)

Praise God for another great delivery!!