Thursday was a day shift in L&D. I started the day doing a C section with Dr. H and Dr.L. The patient was under a complete local anesthetic because the spinal tap didnt work. It was crazy because we had her on the table ready to cut and like always, we tested to see if the patient could feel anything before hand. We use these little grabbers that look like tweezers but with big teeth that would def hurt if you didnt have any anesthesia. You clamp a piece of abdominal skin and ask the patient if they can feel it and if so, what side. Each time we did it the patient complained it hurt and could tell us exactly where we were pinching. Obviously we couldnt start the section this way so we had to put her under and do the delivery that way.

Joe, the first year, was with me on this shift also. He seemed to be pretty bored during it because there werent a lot of deliveries but we did have a lot of admits and r/o labors. During the afternoon, one of Dr. G’s patients went into labor. Dr.G does not work for the hospital but he has ‘privileges’ there. He has his own OB practice and when one of his patients goes into labor, he meets them at riverside county and he delivers them there. we are not allowed to do anything with them unless of course he is running late or something. i had to leave the room because there was another admit and i thought i wouldnt be able to do anything with this delivery anyway. after i left, i went back to the front desk about 45 minutes later and saw Joe standing there just beaming with joy. I asked him if he saw his first delivery [assuming thats why he was so happy]. “Not only did i see it, I just DID it!” i was speechless. apparently when dr G got there he had joe scrub in and let him deliver the damn baby. i was so freakin bitter because i still hadnt delivered a baby yet. 

A little bit later in the afternoon i was with Dr. H and Dr. L. I casually mentioned to them that Joe delivered Dr. G’s patient and then followed with, “not that im bitter or anything. i mean, im totally happy for the FIRST year who delivered a baby on his first day even though i havent delivered one yet.” they both laughed at me and at that moment i think we all realized i was a potential budding OB/GYN.