busy busy
What a wild 24 hrs it has been! We walked up to the grocery store last night and then stayed up quite late last night doing laundry and chatting. We were paged to come to birth #1 just before 2 am, stayed about half an hour until placenta was delivered and then those of us who were just "observing" went back to bed. We were paged to the second birth a couple of hours later, and then very soon after that, we were paged a third time to come to another birth! As of now (7 pm) we've had our fourth delivery today, and have two, possibly three in labor. One will deliver very soon. So I've attended 8 births in 4 days and have two or three more to go before morning. Crazy and really wonderful!!
I did a PKU today, did a prenatal and vag exam on a nearly term mama, and did a good number of prenatal and postpartum visits. I also tore down and made up birth rooms, scrubbed out the bloody laundry from some of the births, emptied garbages, cleaned the shower room, assisted with an "initial" prenatal, and dressed a new baby to go home. It's so great :)
I've been invited to go out tonight with Dina and a friend of hers (who is a student midwife at the other birth center here in El Paso), and as great as it would be to chit chat with other midwives, I don't want to miss a birth. I know that will change and the day will come when I won't care and I'll just want to get out for a while, but I'm not too tired and don't want to miss anything.
I feel like I'm learning the ropes, even learning a lot of spanish as I try to communicate. I'm really good at saying, "Mi espanol es muy mal" meaning "my spanish is very bad", then I tell them I'm from Canada and they smile and nod and are very patient with me. It's hard to be doing clinical skills with a woman and not be able to communicate properly. It gets better each day though.
The weather here today was really nice, not too warm at all and a good stiff breeze. Wish I could have been sitting outside on the patio all day but this was more fun! The work I do here seems to be appreciated by everyone and I haven't made any big mistakes, so it going well so far. So, besides attending births tonight, I think I'm going to get my jammies on and watch tv or read, maybe even do some school work! Now THERE's an idea!
I did a PKU today, did a prenatal and vag exam on a nearly term mama, and did a good number of prenatal and postpartum visits. I also tore down and made up birth rooms, scrubbed out the bloody laundry from some of the births, emptied garbages, cleaned the shower room, assisted with an "initial" prenatal, and dressed a new baby to go home. It's so great :)
I've been invited to go out tonight with Dina and a friend of hers (who is a student midwife at the other birth center here in El Paso), and as great as it would be to chit chat with other midwives, I don't want to miss a birth. I know that will change and the day will come when I won't care and I'll just want to get out for a while, but I'm not too tired and don't want to miss anything.
I feel like I'm learning the ropes, even learning a lot of spanish as I try to communicate. I'm really good at saying, "Mi espanol es muy mal" meaning "my spanish is very bad", then I tell them I'm from Canada and they smile and nod and are very patient with me. It's hard to be doing clinical skills with a woman and not be able to communicate properly. It gets better each day though.
The weather here today was really nice, not too warm at all and a good stiff breeze. Wish I could have been sitting outside on the patio all day but this was more fun! The work I do here seems to be appreciated by everyone and I haven't made any big mistakes, so it going well so far. So, besides attending births tonight, I think I'm going to get my jammies on and watch tv or read, maybe even do some school work! Now THERE's an idea!