When Birth IS EXACTLY Like the Movies!

For those of you who know me well, one of my biggest pet peeves when I was an L&D nurse was when patients would come in expecting to have "movie labor". What this means is you start having contractions, then they immediately become 5 minutes apart, your water breaks, and the baby falls out. Maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration but you know what I mean. In the movies and on TV, they rarely show the hours of waiting or the hours of pushing in some cases.

That being said, I had to share the story of one of my patient's labor as an example that sometimes, things are just like in the movies...

For the sake of my patient's privacy I will use a pseudonym of Sally.

Sally had a very difficult pregnancy, she had problems from moment one 'til the bitter end. Sally and I became close as she called me about once or twice a week with a new problem. Over 38+ weeks, we had quite a few conversations. She is a very nice girl and has really had a very good sense of humor about all the problems she has had. At her last visit, she regaled me with the amusing story of her delivery. I was rolling on the floor. I would have paid good money to be Sally's nurse although I doubt I could have not laughed at her.

Our doctor was not on call the weekend that Sally delivered. Sally and her boyfriend and her 8 year old son had been at a family get-together that evening until around 1 am. Sally told me that she had noticed some mild contractions at the get-together but it wasn't really bothering her. About 3 am, Sally woke up with some strong contractions. She made her sleepy boyfriend keep track of the minutes until the contractions were five minutes apart. All of a sudden, the contractions started coming every minutes, Sally told me. She yelled at her boyfriend to wake up and drive her to the hospital because the baby was coming now! It apparently took her about 10 minutes to get in the car due to all the contractions and her boyfriend told her that he could carry her because she was too heavy. Typical man, right? She said that they drove about 100 mph on the highway to the hospital. Then there was construction around the hospital and Sally was screaming for her boyfriend to pull over and LET HER OUT, SHE WOULD JUST WALK!!

Once inside the hospital, Sally wisely bypassed the ER and headed straight for L&D. Apparently a sweet old man saw her and offered her a wheelchair and to help her up to L&D. She shoved him aside and told him, "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR A WHEELCHAIR!!" Once in L&D, it became apparent pretty quickly that this baby was indeed coming and it was coming now. A doctor was located and according to Sally was standing the corner with his arms crossed like he wasn't going to be apart of any of it. The nurse checked Sally's cervix and told her that she was 9 cm dilated and the baby would be here soon. Sally, who throughout her entire pregnancy had planned on an epidural, saw her dreams of an epidural disappearing. Sally told me later that, at that point, she was in so much pain that she just let her eyes roll back in her head and told the Lord, "I'm ready, take me when you will". When she opened her eyes again she looked around and everyone was just staring at her. She said, "So, what are we waiting for here?" The nurse said, "Honey, we are just waiting for you." With 3 pushes, Sally delivered her baby girl.

This was the closest story to anything I have seen in the movies. This story may have lost some of its humor in the translation into a blog, but believe me, if you had been sitting in the room hearing it from Sally, you would have been dying of laughter as well.