I have not had the chance to blog in over a week. This past week I spend 86 hours at clinical...three 24hr shifts and office hours. This, I am promised by my best friend Elsa, is not what my life is going to become. I feel the effects of so much time at the hospital and so little time with myself.
I will start with a birth story and then wallow in my own sorrow:) At 1230 in the morning, after only managing an hour and a half of sleep a woman came in with contractions. This was her 7th baby and while she had only been having contractions for abut 2 hours, she had a history of quick labors and didnt want to have the baby at home. When I checked her, she was 6cm dilated with her bag of water still intact. With no concerning past OB history and a great fetal heart rate, we took her off the monitors and let her walk. Now, with this population of women, my experience that 6cm dilated means delivery within an hour. I thought to myself, "oh, I will get to go back to sleep." Not so on the mark with this one. During active labor my preceptors protocol is to listen intermittently to fetal heart tones every 15 min. The woman would walk, come back in 15 minutes, and then off to walk again. Beautiful...this will fly and she will deliver in no time. After about an hour of walking she asked to be checked and so I did. Still 6. Off to walk again. After about another hour she stated she thought her water broke, as she was leaking fluid. Great! Now things should really get moving. No such luck. I checked her about an hour later and she was still 6. While I was pretty sure that she had been leaking fluid, I also felt there was a forebag (where one layer of the sac breaks, but not the other, making it seem the bag is broken but it is actually still intact). My preceptor had went to sleep for a while, so I decided not to break this bag. The mom decided that she wanted to rest and so I put her on the monitor and let her sleep. My plan...check her at 5:15am and go from there. When the time rolled around, I got my preceptor and we checked her again. She was 7cm and did in fact have a forebag. Good but not great. We broke her water and waited. I stayed with the mom and helped her with her contractions, while my preceptor when to check on another mom who was getting an epidural. As we are waiting the mom states she is feeling more pressure and will I check her. When I do, she is about 9cm but the baby is still pretty high up. I take off my gloves and sit down next to her. All is calm for about 2 contractions, at which point she looks at me and says she is feeling a lot of pressure. Not really great with the whole "call-button" thing, I poke my head out the door room an call for my preceptor...and that is when I hear "Its coming!" I run back into the room, grab sterile gloves and quickly lift the sheet. Yes this baby is coming. Just then my preceptor comes in, and as she is gloving up, the mom pushes and the baby flies out, on a huge gush of water, in to my hands. I am covered in amniotic fluid from the knees down and the elbows down, with a cry infant in my hands. It was amazing. It was beautiful. It was messy. The most interesting part was once we got mom all cleaned up and I got the chance to really look at the baby, we all noticed its whole face was bruised. This baby flew out so quickly that it bruised its entire face! I have never heard of such a thing.
Outside the world of babies and pregnant women, things seem very off kilter. I feel very disconnected to a world that I found myself thriving in. My practice last week was painful. It hurt. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. I miss my yoga community. I feel the disconnect of not practicing everyday. I feel the loss of not seeing my yoga family. Yoga is a like my metronome. It sets my pace for me and keeps me on point. It is my constant. My foundation. My home. I feel on the outside.
After my 24hr on Sunday, I had to run errands for the wedding with my parents and Mark, leaving me with only 3hrs sleep in about 40hrs. Not good. I felt the effects as my alarm went off this morning at 6:15am to go to practice, and I just couldnt. I was too tired. I spend the day fighting off a migraine headache and a bit of an upset stomach to boot. Lovely.
I know I will find my way. This is just temporary. I will find my balance. I will find my strawberry.
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