When it rains...

So I was first on Sunday which means being at the closed clinic from 6am-6pm... I was totally expecting a boring ass day so I packed my knitting, an episode of Lost on my iPhone and I got over there and did all of my stocking type work right away so I would be done. Of course the more stuff you bring to do the busier you will be. If you show up with nothing to do you would sit for 12 hours and stare at the wall.

I was on with staff midwife Laverne who can't sign off anything for my NARM stuff because she is an LM and not a CPM and I am trying to do the Secondary Skills Sign Off. Anyhoo, I'm not too jazzed about taking experiences from interns who could actually count them so I always hope for a slow day with Laverne. Nope. A woman shows up with SROM and I end up spending the entire day working her labor and since I'm off at 6 (and Laverne is off at 5 to be replaced with Jenny with whom I CAN count my clinicals) I'm pretty sure I will have to turn her over to the next intern on shift.

I don't know if I have mentioned it before but Laverne is pretty much awesome. I don't even care that I can't count stuff with her because she has taught me an insane amount of clinical skills. If I were on a deserted island and my baby was coming out shoulder first I would want Laverne to be my midwife. She is sweet and friendly to the clients and her clinic style is much more like what we think of for a homebirth midwife; she takes a lot of time with people. Laverne can make ANYONE laugh, she has a gift for connecting with the clients. I know I am going to miss her when I leave.

Here if you are first on with a laboring woman who is not imminent (within the hour) you have to turn her over when you go off shift.

Also, it is worth reiterating here to anyone who is green and thinking of coming to Casa... labor can be a messy messy event.

Long story short I got my 3rd catch in two weeks of being at Casa. Yay. Then I had to stay and do all of the postpartum stuff and paperwork which can feel REALLY oppressive if your training has been homebirth as mine has. You do vitals on client and baby every 15 minutes for two hours and then every hour for 6 hours. Also you have all this paperwork that I am still trying to understand with regard to the American birth certificate. Then you have to discharge them (when they're ready) and clean the room, do the laundry, take out the biohazard, etc. It is EXHAUSTING in a way I did not previously understand.

I got up at 5:00am, caught that baby at 6:40pm, discharged them at 12:42am, did laundry until 2:00am and then I went to bed. Except I was second on and another client was in labor so I got paged to come back at 4:00am. I was so disoriented I couldn't remember my job.

I finally got back to bed at 6:00 and after dealing with 2 phone calls from home about kindergarten sadness I got to sleep at 6:46am and slept until 3:00. Now I'm starving and I'm about to walk to the Q.

I hate to sound like a cliche but this place really is bootcamp for midwives... and not just in the birth sense, in the sense that you will get no sleep, you will do manual labor, you will do things you really don't want to do... oh, and you will pay thousands of dollars to do it. :)