Early morning text msg

Minutes before six a.m. my phone alerted me to a text message.  It was not the kind of message anyone wants to read.

A dear midwife friend from UT was involved in a car accident the day before and had lost her life.

My head struggled to come out of a sleep induced fog and fully grasp the meaning of the message I was reading. When it dawned on me...the who, the what, the when...I began to weep.

Even now, after a few hours to process and reflect, I'm still dumbfounded, speechless.

Such a loss.  She was such a talented, beautiful young woman.  She will be greatly missed.

Balance

Balance is not easy for me right now.  I guess if I were honest, I'd have to say that balance has never come easy for me.  It seems I'm always stretched too thin, burning both ends of the candle, behind the eight ball, frantically trying to get ahead, blah, blah, blah.

AND... I am dreading Wednesday.  Staff Meeting at the birth center.  I HAVE to have a "come to Jesus" talk with my preceptors.  I'm worried that it will not go well.  I have to find balance with my preceptorship, my academics, my family, my spiritual life.  So, I'm thinking the first place to start is with my preceptorship.  It's an important part of my education, but it can't be so time consuming as to take away from my actual class study time.  Which it is.  I'm at the BC (birth center) about 11 hrs a day, 3 days a week.  That's just for prenatal appts and does not include any births or home postpartum visits.  While I'm at the BC, I am learning valuable stuff.  But by the time I get home at night, there is rarely a few hours left to prepare dinner, eat it, kiss the hubby, and crack a textbook before its time for bed.  Not a lot of quality study time.

Add to this the fact that my preceptor (one of them) told me last week that she's terribly disappointed in me and my lack of skills.  She actually called me minimalistic.  As in, I take the minimal approach and only do the bare minimum to get the job done.  WOW!  Really?!?!?!  I'm flabbergasted, to be honest.  I've gutted it out with these ladies for several months, giving it all I've got to the point of neglecting my studies with MCU, not to mention time with my family.  There are days when we've had birth after birth and I've not seen my own bed for over 40 hrs.  But I'm minimalistic.  I know this is the life of a midwife, and I'm not grumping about the long hours.  It goes with the territory.  But, to have my preceptor say this to me...well, I'm rather bewildered.  I'm having a hard time getting over it, to be honest.  Possibly I'm taking it too personal?  Here's a text message that was sent to me in error from one midwife to the other.  Add this to my perplexity... (note: this text came after an all-nighter birth while I'm on my way to the BC for another birth - three babies within 24 hrs. that day) Midwife #1 was going home to sleep. Midwife #2 was just coming on shift after time off.

"I'm sending Kim to BC.  Maybe she can get a nap.  But I think it's good for her to experience the marathon. Rank has privileges :o) LOL  I think we r going to like this setup."

During this "marathon" I'm the only one who went without sleep.  4 hrs. sleep from 5am Monday to noon on Wed.  What is that? 55 hrs. or something?  Again, I'm not complaining or looking for sympathy, but when  you add the ass chewing into this time frame as well as the comment of minimalistic...Grrr... Frustration!!

Does an intern have the right to feel taken advantage of?  Am I free grunt labor?  I am learning things, and I'm not paying for the internship (like some students do) so do I just suck it up and get as much outta this as I can?  Do I even bother mentioning to them that I AM NOT MINIMALISTIC?

Add all this baloney to the mix of moving AGAIN, (without getting any time off from the BC) and you can see that I am desperate for balance!  I'm just not sure where to begin to find it.

I think my head may explode!

Teen Mom

Yesterday, I helped a 16 yr. old girl have a baby.  She delivered a very pretty, little 6 lb. 10 oz. baby girl.  Seriously, a more beautiful baby I have never seen.

It was a very emotionally charged birth and it brought back a flood of memories for me.  After the birth, I had to go to the kitchen (in the birth center) and have myself a little cry.  Thankfully CB was with me (she's one of the other midwives).  She just hugged me and let me sob for a bit.

If you know me, you know that I had a baby when I was 16.  A baby girl who weighed 6 lb. 8 oz.  A little baby girl that I thought was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen.  Kristen is 28 yrs. old now.  I was surprised at how this current birth affected me after so many years have passed.

I want to share more about this birth and all that happened, but right now I really need to process it all.   I've been up since Monday morning with only 4 hrs. sleep (as of yesterday at noon).  I did sleep like the dead last night, but I still need time to compartmentalize all that took place.  I promise I'll blog it...later.

I guess I can truthfully say that emotions, feelings, thoughts, The Past, never ever go away.  Even if you've "dealt" with it.  After 28 yrs. all it took was a trigger (and what a trigger!) to bring them all back to the forefront of your mind.

I need to chew on this for a bit.  I need to pray.  I need to find peace.  I need to find quiet and safety and take time to deal.  I may have to make a phone call or two.  I think I need to have a conversation with my mother and father.

I know I need to call my Kristen and tell her how much I love her! 

This is my little 6# 8oz baby girl the day after she was born.

Whirlwind

It's been a crazy few days.  LOTS of babies!!!  There have been 5 since Friday.  In fact, two were born on Friday, within 1 hr of each other.  Thankfully, both were at the birth center so we could "tag-team".

Then we had a baby born on Saturday afternoon.  Then two more born on Sunday.  I slept on Friday night but then didn't get to bed again until last night (Sunday).  I was literally draggin my ass yesterday!!!

But, all lovely births, beautiful healthy babies and blissfully happy parents.  Thank you, Jesus!

And!! I think we may have found a house to rent.  Hallelujah!!  AND! we can have our mutts!!!

EXCEPT...

There have been plenty of lovely, happy prenatal appointments since the awful day of telling a new mommy that  she wasn't pregnant.  Plenty of perfectly perfect baby bumps.  Plenty of blissfully happy mama's, proudly exposing their bellies for me to "play with" (insert palpation, fundal height measurements, fetal heart tone auscultation and other boring terms that all equal "playing with baby" in my little world).

Yesterday was no different, EXCEPT... one little mama...26 weeks pregnant with her second wiggly, actively kicking darling...just back from vacation with her family...suntanned...relaxed...smiling and sunshiny...here for a follow-up ultrasound.

Her last ultrasound, before she left on vacation, showed a lower than normal amount of amniotic fluid.  Our U/S tech wanted to look again, to be certain...

Certainty is the term Gross Abnormality; Non-Compatible With Life;  meaning that once this little one is born, she will die.  The U/S shows only a partial spine, only two chambers in her little heart, no kidneys, no stomach.  Yet she is alive at the moment, kicking and wiggling inside her mommy's belly.

When I saw Mom's face as she exited our ultrasound room, I knew the diagnosis.  My heart broke.

I never really know what to do or say in this type of situation.  I'm a terribly emotional person and very very sensitive to others emotions.  When this mama came down the stairs from our ultrasound room, all I could think to do was hug her, hug her HARD!  She made eye contact with me and my footsteps advanced.  I didn't ask, but told her, "I am going to hug you," while tears are pouring down my cheeks.

And I did hug her.
And she hugged back, desperately.
And I wept while she wept.

I do not like this day.