Labor and Delivery

I was able to watch three cesarean and one vaginal delivery during L&D rotation. I think, no.. I know I don't want to be an L&D nurse. I never thought I did. But rotation confirmed it. It was great to see these babies be born, but I don't enjoy being in the OR or dealing with the mothers. It's all the coaching that doesn't appeal to me. I love when the baby is out and doing the assessment on them, and seeing them for the first time, but really it was all I cared about... the baby. Dealing with mom's anxiety, pain, breathing techniques, position changes, monitoring contractions, checking cervixes, monitoring baby's heart rate, family hovering around was in no way appealing to me.

However let me share my experience. I was assigned to an RN that had a scheduled C-section. The patient was late 45 minutes so we just sat around and waited until she got there. We got her prepared and were waiting on the doctor for another hour. I was bored. We go in and I'm standing at her feet. I can see everything, and more than I wanted to. I'm hoping and praying that the smell of the cauterizer isn't going to make me pas out. I was good. She gets her anesthesia and my nurse is holding her hand and being all supportive "now just breathe, you're ok". They lay her down and strap her in for the ride. They start cutting her open. It took a long time to cut her open, they had to tape her belly on a bar because she was large so they could get low enough. They finish cutting, pull baby out, hand baby to nurse, and pull her uterus out of her body and plop it on top of her!!! I was in shock that they would pull it out of her just so they could stitch her uterus back together. The doctor calls me closer and starts pointing to the different areas "and here's her fallopian tube, and her ovaries, and this is her uterus, and we're going to do a ligation on here". Seriously. The patient is awake listening to the doctor talk about her insides. It was great. They stitch her uterus, shove it back inside of her, and start stitching her back together layer by layer. Oh that takes forever! I left the OR before they were done. It was pretty cool to watch the surgery and see all the water and blood. I'm glad I didn't pass out or puke in my mask.

The vaginal delivery was horrid! It scared the desire to have children right out of me! I mean the mess, the head coming through the birth canal... it was a little too much for me. I had a premium seat for this one too. She was pushing and pushing and I saw the head crowning and pushing and out baby comes. It was a mess, and mom had a tear and delivering a placenta. Oh it was just bad. I think if every teenager watched a delivery then we would eliminate the whole teen pregnancy thing. But again as soon as I saw the baby I was happy. I wasn't able to be involved with this baby because he was a preemie and there were tonz of people in the room. I mean like 15 health care people in there. It was nuts.

L&D was fun for the day. But definitely not something I ever want to do. I hope that when I'm pregnant I have sweet L&D nurses that love it, like all the nurses I came into contact with at this hospital. So because of that it would be bad if I went into it, because I really don't like it!