In my dream, the person I was talking with was starting to annoy me. They were rapping their knuckles on the table over and over. They just kept on drumming away incessantly, all the while pretending to be listening attentively to my story. I was just about to tell them how annoying this was when I woke up. Knocking. Somebody was really knocking. Knocking... means...AHHH! I flew out of bed, tripping over the garbage and getting stuck in my sheets. I swung open our door and was blinded by the small hall-way light. Somebody was saying "there's a labour."
"Ah, kuya Niox, Salamat kuya. Pila ka cms na? Wala pa?"
Ok, so she like JUST got here. I woke Amber up and we raced to the bathroom, and literally 2 minutes from the time we woke up, we were flying down the stairs and were at the clinic. As we entered the gate, we heard the shrill, high-pitched, distinct and unquestionable cry of a newborn.
Screeching to a halt, we just stood there. Then we rolled our eyes, trudged upstairs and confirmed what we knew was true. Yep, baby out, and we missed the whole thing.
So we went back down and sat with Kuya Niox on the bench on the street in the warm darkness and lamented our bad luck. We asked Kuya Niox how long the patient had been at the clinic, and he said he literally ran to get us the moment he had informed the midwives that the patient had come. She'd come in fully dilated and as soon as she got upstairs, she pushed once, and the baby was out. Golly.
The night before, a patient had come in at 2 am and was only 4 cms dilated, but because she lived far away, the midwives let her stay downstairs. At 2:20 am, the husband was knocking on the midwives' door in a frantic and persistent way, and 2 minutes after that, the baby was out. OUT! Yep, we didn't make it for that one either.
Amber and I came up with several ideas for how to avoid missing births in the future, including sleeping in our scrubs; giving the guards different strategies for noisemaking devices to wake us up if unresponsive to knocking; sleeping in the clinic; sleeping in the delivery room; and, as last resort, sleeping on the delivery table.
I honestly don't know how Hilary didn't miss a single birth for what was it....the first 750 births or something? Dave, her husband, said if you try to wake her up by talking to her, shaking her, etc...it is ineffective, but if you whisper "labor...10 cms"in her ear, she is up and out of the room by the time you're done saying it. Maybe I can train my subconscious mind to associate knocking with labour.
"Ah, kuya Niox, Salamat kuya. Pila ka cms na? Wala pa?"
Ok, so she like JUST got here. I woke Amber up and we raced to the bathroom, and literally 2 minutes from the time we woke up, we were flying down the stairs and were at the clinic. As we entered the gate, we heard the shrill, high-pitched, distinct and unquestionable cry of a newborn.
Screeching to a halt, we just stood there. Then we rolled our eyes, trudged upstairs and confirmed what we knew was true. Yep, baby out, and we missed the whole thing.
So we went back down and sat with Kuya Niox on the bench on the street in the warm darkness and lamented our bad luck. We asked Kuya Niox how long the patient had been at the clinic, and he said he literally ran to get us the moment he had informed the midwives that the patient had come. She'd come in fully dilated and as soon as she got upstairs, she pushed once, and the baby was out. Golly.
The night before, a patient had come in at 2 am and was only 4 cms dilated, but because she lived far away, the midwives let her stay downstairs. At 2:20 am, the husband was knocking on the midwives' door in a frantic and persistent way, and 2 minutes after that, the baby was out. OUT! Yep, we didn't make it for that one either.
Amber and I came up with several ideas for how to avoid missing births in the future, including sleeping in our scrubs; giving the guards different strategies for noisemaking devices to wake us up if unresponsive to knocking; sleeping in the clinic; sleeping in the delivery room; and, as last resort, sleeping on the delivery table.
I honestly don't know how Hilary didn't miss a single birth for what was it....the first 750 births or something? Dave, her husband, said if you try to wake her up by talking to her, shaking her, etc...it is ineffective, but if you whisper "labor...10 cms"in her ear, she is up and out of the room by the time you're done saying it. Maybe I can train my subconscious mind to associate knocking with labour.
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