Adventures in Nursing, Part 2

I had completely forgotten this good tale and it didn't even happen that long ago. It took place during the time when Taylor and I lost our minds and thought that the best place to move as newlyweds was to St. Paul, MN in January! Minnesota is a beautiful place but I do not recommend moving there to native Texans, there is no good BBQ or Mexican food there! Plus, it snows there, like big 12 ft of snow! Anyway, I digress...

Story 2: SAM SHOWS OFF HER ACTION HERO SKILLS

When we lived in St. Paul, I worked as a travel nurse at this hospital in downtown St. Paul. They were going from paper charting to computer charting and needed extra nurses to help fill in the void as their regular staff nurses learned the computer system. It was a nice unit.

So, this one night, I was taking care of a patient who was having her 4th or 5th baby, I don't remember. The patient didn't speak English and since I do speak some Spanish and no one else in Minnesota does they, of course, assigned her to me. She was very nice and wasn't interested in an epidural, very low maintenance. Plus, she was a clinic patient, so she was being taken care of by this very nice Resident.

The resident had just come to check the patient's cervix to see if she was making any change and she was about 6 cm. We figured it would be going pretty quickly from here. The patient decided that she needed some IV pain medication, so I stepped out of the room to grab some. While I was out of the room, the patient requested that the Resident (who also spoke Spanish, miracle of miracles!) help her up to the bathroom. Now, an experienced OB doctor or nurse would have known that when this is not your first baby and you feel like you need to go to the bathroom, it might be time to have the baby. This Resident, nice as she was, did not know this.

So, when I walked back into the room I find the Resident helping the patient back from the bathroom. We told the patient to lie down and I pointed out to the Resident that we might want to see if she was fully dilated at this time. The patient wanted to wait until her contraction was over to lay down. All of a sudden, her water broke all over the floor! Okay, I know in the movies when a person's water breaks, they have the baby within seconds. However, in real life it usually still takes a while, in fact, it can take hours. Not in this case though. Once the patient's water broke, I noticed she started making this face that you don't ever want to see a patient who is standing up on the side of the bed make. It was a face that said, I am going to push this baby out now. I yelled at the Resident to grab some gloves and as she fumbled I noticed that the baby was crowning. As if in slow motion, I dove across the bed (since I was standing on the opposite side of the patient) and stuck my hand out just in time to stop the baby from just dropping out onto the floor on his head! By that time, the patient was screaming and the Resident had finally managed to get some gloves on. She grabbed the baby and we helped the patient get back into the bed. By then, others had heard the scream and came into the room from the nurses station.

Not to worry though, the baby was unharmed, the mom was fine and all I came away with was a need to change my scrubs and wash down my arms about twenty times to get the bodily fluids off me. This is not a story that really showcases my good nursing abilities but at least no one was hurt. Unfortunately, sometimes things happen that are out of our control. I don't really think there is a moral to this story, it was just one of those crazy times that seem to come along with working in Labor and Delivery!