Kent ~ Baby # 18

Meet Faith and baby Kent! This young girl is only 16 years old. She just turned 16 years old a few weeks ago. She was endorsed to me at 3-4 cm and was only interested in sitting down on a bench and rubbing her belly. I asked her to do exercises- stair climbing and walking around. She kept thinking the pain was as bad as it was going to get. Instead, it kept getting worse. She would start losing control and freaking out, then with a word and eye contact she calmed down instantly.

When it came time to push, she kept asking permission to push and I told her to wait. Eventually, she no longer asked if she could push, she just did it. She pushed for about an hour and toward the end Kent's heart tones were dropping. She watched her baby's head crowning with a mirror and was very excited about it. She pushed several times that way. As his head was crowning, there was a lot of resistance and I literally watched his head turn blue (cyanotic) while waiting to be born. We asked her to push through the pain and he was born. Kent's first APGAR score was 5, so we suctioned and gave oxygen and he pinked right up. His second one was 8.

Faith cried for joy after her son was born.

Baby #17 Gian Carl

Riza, Gian Carl's mother was already at the clinic when I got on shift. She was 8 cm dilated and the previous shift had broken her water in order to speed up her labor. She was very tired but was close to giving birth. Once she started pushing, her baby was born 19 minutes later. The placenta wasn't coming so my supervisor did a manual extraction. During birth, she tore a second degree tear and I got to suture her.

Gian's father, Glenn, was so attentive during birth, supporting his wife, rubbing her back and encouraging her. He was also the first one to bathe his son.

Ede Jr's Big Day!

An-An is one of my continuities. She has a remarkable history of birthing small babies. I took her as a continuity after seeing that her fundal height had not increased week after week. I was concerned that her baby would have complications and wanted to make sure someone follow up closely on her. The great news is An-An labored really well and had her baby after about 4 1/2 hours of labor. He was small but healthy.

This is her third child. When she had her last child, she was out in the mountains visiting her family. One day, she was alone in the house when the contractions started and gave birth completely unassisted after a very short labor! :-) She is a remarkable woman.