how this midwife prepares for a birth…
pamela on Oct 24 2004 at 10:11 am | Filed under: life of a midwife
Both of my clients that are due are doing major prelabor, early labor stuff. It’s been a weird week because of it. I’m totally prepared in some ways, not at all prepared in other ways.
When I’m on call for a birth, I worry about clothes. I know that this is a pretty shallow thing to be concerned with, but really, once my instruments are sterilized and my birth bag is stocked, I have an obsession with clothes.
So, I think to myself this morning: I could be going to a birth this weekend - maybe today. What on earth will I wear? So I pick out a couple outfits that are appropriate for the season, yet look professional (in cases of transport, I hate to look frumpy), but are cool enough to wear in a hot birth room or have short sleeves (or sleeves that can roll up) for waterbirths.
I usually wear linen. I love linen and I have lots of it. It’s a very comfy fiber and I don’t fret too much if it wrinkles. However, I do iron it. So, I have a pile of linen clothes on my downstairs chair, waiting to be ironed. If I iron these things, my options for middle of the night clothing decisions will be broader.
I usually wear linen tops with capri pants. I wear capri pants all the time. Since fall is here, capri pants are less and less appropriate. My legs get cold! I need to remember, too, to put in a pair of socks in my bag for births. My feet get cold, but I don’t usually wear socks. In fact, I don’t always like wearing socks to a birth because they inevitably get wet!
I just realized that my suture instruments are not sterilized. They’re clean, but not sterile. That means that I have to wash the fabric wrap that they’re in, too. Ack. Maybe I’ll just wrap them in sterilization paper this time to sterilize them (I have fabric wraps that I usually sterilize them in) and deal with changing them over to fabric later. I rarely suture - twice in my practice in nearly four years - so I probably won’t be needing them, and I could always boil them at my client’s house if I needed to. Ugh, but there’s something about just boiling your instruments there that people seem to feel uncomfortable with ….. like somehow bringing them in a package, taped up, makes them “more” sterile.
I have a client that I promised I would sew a sling for. I need to wash her fabric and get a couple rings from the hardware store and get started on that. I’m a major procrastinator. Why on earth do I offer to make them? It only takes me 45 minutes, but it’s the process of cutting the fabric and dragging out my sewing machine that makes it seem like such an ordeal.
So, S, the second-time mom due 11/2, had regular contractions this morning, but they peetered out. She says that she feels the same way she did with her first: shakey at times, nauseaus, etc. She said that the head is so low it’s uncomfortable to sit.
I wonder if she’ll have her baby this weekend. Better get to ironing!