OBGYN @ Riverside

I wrote this on Friday morning:

Hi all. I am post call meaning I was up for about 30 hours. I have since slept but still feel bleh. It was a pretty good call. I got to see 7 deliveries and helped in some of them.

It was really surreal to watch a baby being born for the first time. The first one I saw was a C-section. And this is even more surreal because you go in there as if it's a regular surgery. You make the incision and start cutting through the layers. Then all of a sudden there's this baby and it's crying. And it's like wtf just happened? I swear childbirth is a complete miracle. The placenta comes out and it looks like something someone made/designed and it's perfectly made. I got to help transfer the baby to the examining table. It was all warm and slimy. I was so scared I was going to drop it. So crazy. My first vaginal birth I saw was of an anencephalic baby. The parents had decided to carry the baby to term instead of terminate the pregnancy when they found out. It was so sad because you know this baby is going to die, and they still went ahead with it, went through the labor and pain just to see their baby and say good bye. It was extremely hard not to cry on either delivery. But after like the 4th one it wasn't so bad.

We had a really difficult(personality wise) patient last night. 21 year old couple, very little prenatal care and so her dates weren't good. she was around 32 weeks pregnant +/- 3 weeks. she had 2 previous c sections which increased her chance for uterine rupture if her uterus continued to contract. we wanted to give her a medicine to stop her contractions b/c the baby was too young and we didn't want her to rupture. b/c she had been given this medication b4 and had some side effects, she didn't want to take it. we tried to explain to her that the risks of the side effects outweighed the risk of her bleeding or having the baby's lungs be underdeveloped. she couldn't understand this for some reason and didn't want the drug. finally she agreed to it. she finally ended up leaving against medical advice(AMA) b/c she said her babysitter had to go home. um ok. i swear people are crazy.

that was my call night. oh and for a few hours i got to hang out with cute paramedic student. boo he didn't leave me his number haha. he was 22 anyway. lol

My First Week of Rotations

I know you all are pros at rotations by now, so this blog can remind you how far you have come!
Today I saw my first surgery, it was funny I had to ask the housekeeping staff what scrubs to wear and the nurses knew it was my first time in an OR just because of the look on my face. There were 2 c-sections this morning and during the first one all I could think about was how glad I was that I had a normal delivery. This week I've probably seen about 200 pregnant women, luckily I can do the doppler for the fetal heart sounds now, and sympathize when they can't move around because of their bellies. Other than that I feel like I'm just my doctor's shadow as she zooms from patient to patient. The baby is doing good, getting big and enjoying time with his Grandpa, the hours in this rotation are great so I can always come home to feed him at noon, I have two half days, and Wednesday I'm just going to hang out at Labor and Delivery and do my own thing. So its different than I expected but I think its going ok.


PS. Gracy, Norma from Citrus Valley says hi.