It's hard for me to put myself in a patient's position unless I have experienced exactly what they have experienced. It's definitely a learned skill to be able to interpret exactly what that patient needs. Everyone is different and condition will vary with each person. When I think about pregnancy, I think about the similarities; trimesters, morning sickness, 9 months, weight gain, fetal heart tones, fetal movement, nutrition, "water-breaking," dilation, labor, delivery, etc. But, there are so many other things that can happen; fetal distress, miscarriage, preeclampsia (characterized by high blood pressure leading to seizures), late deceleration of fetal heart beats, emergency C-sections, meconium aspirations, episiotomies, placenta abruptio (when placenta detaches from the uterine wall too early), premature contractions, still borns, etc. When you have your first pregnancy appointment, you make plans as to how you would like this pregnancy to go; do I want to do a "natural birth?" prenatal vitamins? Doctor's appointments? finances? hospital stay? C-section? etc. Sometimes it doesn't go exactly as planned......
The reason I wrote this out is because I had a patient today that had some traumatic experiences. This woman gave birth to a beautiful baby girl just after midnight. The baby had normal apgar scores and was breathing and crying. Sadly, the mom had to undergo a 3rd degree laceration. Basically, she tore almost all the way from the vagina to the rectum. OUCH! Upon arrival to the newborn care unit, the baby wasn't feeding well. The baby won't breastfeed and over the rest of the morning-afternoon the baby lost almost 10% of it's body weight. This is dangerous. So in order to help the baby, we had to give the baby supplemental feedings (bottle). This is such a sad sad thing because usually you want the mom to breastfeed the baby for months not just a few hours. She was so sad, so so sad. It was an emotional day.
Later in the day, mom started feeling some more pain in her vaginal area. During an assessment, we noticed that her stitches were coming lose. The Doctor came to assess the area, and concluded that she needed to go into surgery again. Poor mom had to leave the baby and go into surgery. So, we called for the IV team and we got her prepared for surgery. About 4-5 hours later, the family was back together and were able to go home the next morning.
It's so sad to hear these things! Especially when they are such nice and sweet people. One thing I continue to learn is that plans change. Things can change completely without knowing. Whether they are good or bad, they help strengthen our character. I know if this happened to me, I would be totally grateful that I left the hospital with a beautiful baby girl. Through the rain and the storm, there can always be some sunshine. :)
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