Tonight just before I went to work a friend texted me his prayer for me. It read, "Lord Jesus, please be with Ashley tonight. Keep her busy and bring lots of babies into the world tonight [I don't think my friend is worried about overpopulation]. Lead Ashley to pray over each of them. In Jesus' Name, amen."
I'm so thankful to have friends who pray for me. What a blessing to know that they love me enough to mention me before God Almighty and ask for special protection or blessing or wisdom! How God must love it when His children bring each other to Him.
I have prayed for babies as I take care of them in the nursery but haven't prayed for any labor patients yet. I get busy and focused on not missing anything important in a job I'm pretty new at. I always pray over each shift, for wisom and a sharp mind, and that I won't kill anyone. Seriously. And then I get busy working with laboring moms and trust that God is guiding. But it would be good to keep on praying. God's gonna guide either way, but it's good for me to be constantly remembering that He's with me, and to listen to Him in the midst of the stress that my busy job can bring. Ephesians 6:18 says to keep on praying in the Spirit, at all times with all kinds of prayers. I was blessed to read the text my friend sent me, but was quickly thinking of how the night might go after reading it, not thinking any more about it...
My first assignment was a first time mom who had been induced and was pushing. She had already been pushing for over 2 hours and was exhausted and ready to try a vacuum delivery when I came into her room to introduce myself and assume her care. I remembered this couple from yesterday morning when she was in very early labor, walking the halls to try to get her labor going better. I think this couple probably memorized the order of the pictures on the walls for as many laps as they made. The doctor arrived and we began to set up for a vacuum delivery. In my mind I know that this could be hard on her baby. Her baby could be born very stressed out, not breathing or having unstable blood sugars or other wacky vital signs. Vacuums have saved lives, but they sure put a lot of pressure on the baby's head as the doctor pulls (sometimes with all his might, it appears). I laid my hands on my mom's (my patient's) shoulder and knee or leg as I encouraged her to push with everything she had. It had been a long road for her. It was as if she had been running a marathon for hours, but no one had any idea if the finish line was actually close or not. Her epidural kept her from feeling like she was being shredded open by a meat grinder, or from feeling like she was on fire but it also kept her from being able to push effectively, which probably explains why she'd been pushing for 2+ hours with minimal progress. My hands were on her to encourage her, to impart as much love and energy as could flow through me, and to pray for her. I just automatically prayed for strength and stamina for this mom and for safety and health for her little baby who was about to be born, assisted by a vacuum which can be very stressful to these new little babies. By now the room was full of staff, who stood by in case the baby was born not breathing and needing intubation, or in case a shoulder dystocia occured. I operated the pressure of the vacuum at the doctor's cues, and he pulled like crazy as the mom pushed with all the power she could muster. After three pulls, a beautiful baby was born without further complication. Mom and dad cried as they held the child they could only feel and talk to for so many months through many layers of tissue surrounding his mom's protected womb. They had one cute baby. With one big bump on his head. But it's okay. It will go away.
In the moment that I had prayed for this mom and baby, I hadn't thought about how I had gotten that text earlier and decided that I should pray; I just prayed. But I know that I was encouraged by my friends' text. It planted a very good seed. The seed boar fruit.
How powerful encouragement can be. How good it is to spur one another on toward love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24)! I love being spurred on toward love and good works! And regarding prayer, James wrote that is anyone is in trouble or sick, that the elders of the church should pray over them...and that the prayer offered in faith will make a sick person well. And "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:13-16). So perhaps a couple of prayers were answered tonight, as I prayed for a first time over my laboring mom and baby (as opposed to getting so caught up in the medical part of my job that I don't stop and ask for God's power at that moment), and as the baby was born healthy and is at this moment likely to be snuggling with his mamma, filling her heart with joy.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
My first blog post
God is beautiful. He is wonderful. I’m amazed at how He changes me. He gives me
love where I had none; He draws me closer to Him when I feel that I have become
distanced. He respectfully and lovingly waits for me to call on Him so that He
can show me that He is my Hero. God IS my Hero. I have no hope to live above
the cause/effect/instinctual/primal life
of an animal without the purpose He gives to me. The greatest purpose I can
have in life is this: to love and please my Hero, and to share that love with
others so that they too can have joy that transcends any circumstance; peace
amidst strife; and any burden of sin lifted off. And replaced with the most
wonderful, weightless blessing.
Tonight I prayed that God would refresh me with His Holy
Spirit. My spirit is like a cup that grows taller as soon as it’s filled. God
refreshed me with His Holy Spirit. But as soon as He did, the vessel of my
spirit grew taller and wanted more, more of is love and character and wisdom.
He draws me in closer to the heart of God. I am close to the heart of God
because He has revealed Himself and His love to me. And again there is room to grow closer to Him
and who He is. There is so much more of God that I want and that I yearn for.
At the moment I am filled, the sense of satisfied deficit grows-as the cup is
filled, it grows larger, leaving more room and desire for more fulfillment.
“The Lord confides in those who fear Him.” I am not satisfied with status quo.
I want more of God. I need more, I love getting more of Him.
Last night was the first night that I had a patient all on
my own, who labored, from start to finish during my shift, (I’ve labored women
who went to section on my own, but that changes things a lot). I got to
experience all of her labor with her. We established trust. We are the same age
during 9 months of the year. She trusted me as a clinician and I trusted her
body to do the work of having a baby. I
massaged strength into her already strong but doubting body. I spoke words of
confidence into her resilient spirit. I had soft beautiful music on which
reminded us both that this experience was about this baby and this mom, not a
mapped out hospital procedure. I taught her about her body and what it was
doing, about the rushes of energy she felt with each contraction, and how the
intensity that she felt is good, because it is her body working to bring her
baby closer to the outside world where she would be able to hold her baby in
her arms.
This mom had aching arms that most other first time moms
don’t experience. She had lost her first baby at 23 weeks gestation one year
ago. She ached to hold a healthy baby in her arms for the first time; to be
shown that she could successfully have a living, healthy baby that she could
have to love and raise. I turned up the volume of the fetal heart tone monitor
so that she could be reassured by that fast paced, persistent heartbeat.
Reassurance and love and attention are what she needed most.
And those are my favorite things to give. I had some paperwork to keep up with,
but when it became hard for her to bear the contractions, I was with her. My
attention and my energy were with her, with her body and spirit. Her work was
my work. Her pain was my pain. Her desire to have this baby was my desire. We
squeezed hands. We swayed together; she buried her face intensely into my chest
and then apologized, unnecessarily about getting blood and fluids on my scrubs
(from her hands). Doesn’t she know that in this moment, I couldn’t tell a
difference between her blood and my blood? We did no formal pushing. I didn’t teach her
how to push, which is an exception from the needs of most deliveries,
especially the epiduralized labors that numbs a mom’s sense of how to push her
baby out. In fact, as soon as I could tell she was pushing, I had her stop as
best as she could. This baby was coming now. I absolutely hate doing that-telling
moms to stop pushing, to not listen
to their body at that moment, which contradicts everything I had told her prior
to that moment. It feels ridiculous to make moms do this. All this progress,
which is the whole point, and now I say, “Okay try to breathe through your body’s
overwhelming urges to push your little one out, just until your doctor gets
here.” In my defense, I do work at a hospital and I’m supposed to get the
doctor there in time for the delivery. And darn it all, but I’m not a doctor. This
girls body did all of the work without any intentional facilitation by either
one of us. Earlier, when her labor was still slow, this mamma had asked me how
she would know when to push. A common question for first time moms. Her fear
was now hilariously obsolete as this sweet mom couldn’t help her body from
pushing, from doing this hard work, this labor that it was designed so
amazingly to do.
I asked another nurse to call the doctor to come for the
delivery. The baby’s heart rate began to drop significantly with each
contraction and between them. The fetal heart baseline became untraceable with
marked variability present. Not my favorite pattern. The heart rate also became
very difficult to trace. I turned the poor mom from one side to the other and
placed a fetal scalp electrode, which I hated to do, and felt it was
unnecessary, but given the urging from my peers and lack of solid experience
from which to draw from to make my own sure decisions, did it. Oxygen was
placed by a peer, probably just for extra measure to maintain as much fetal
reserve as possible, and I fluid bolused her, just in case there were any late
decals present that I hadn’t detected from the poor fetal heart tracing, which
there were not, as noted upon later close inspection. No interventions helped
and the waiting game began for the doctor, which was only a few minutes. A wise
and experienced colleague, present as the baby nurse, set the vacuum on my
table for my quick access should the need arise.
The doctor gloved up; I prepared the bed and prepped the
patient with betadine, my sweet new mom pushed twice, and the entire head and
body shot out in one foul swoop, landing right on his mom’s lower abdomen. Three chords wrapped tightly around his neck
accounted for his heart rate dropping with contractions. As his body had been
squeezed through the birth canal, the rope tightened. His tone and color were
decreased for the first few minutes but was overall a very beautiful,
cute-faced, 6-3 baby boy.
I had tons of paperwork to do between taking care of her
recovery. She ended up bleeding excessively (700ish mls), but was otherwise
healthy and happy and intact, with a beautiful, live baby boy resting on her
chest. I hugged them both and exclaimed at what a great job she did. And she
certainly did. At that moment, I remembered well why I am a labor/delivery
nurse. And I love it.
love where I had none; He draws me closer to Him when I feel that I have become
distanced. He respectfully and lovingly waits for me to call on Him so that He
can show me that He is my Hero. God IS my Hero. I have no hope to live above
the cause/effect/instinctual/primal life
of an animal without the purpose He gives to me. The greatest purpose I can
have in life is this: to love and please my Hero, and to share that love with
others so that they too can have joy that transcends any circumstance; peace
amidst strife; and any burden of sin lifted off. And replaced with the most
wonderful, weightless blessing.
Tonight I prayed that God would refresh me with His Holy
Spirit. My spirit is like a cup that grows taller as soon as it’s filled. God
refreshed me with His Holy Spirit. But as soon as He did, the vessel of my
spirit grew taller and wanted more, more of is love and character and wisdom.
He draws me in closer to the heart of God. I am close to the heart of God
because He has revealed Himself and His love to me. And again there is room to grow closer to Him
and who He is. There is so much more of God that I want and that I yearn for.
At the moment I am filled, the sense of satisfied deficit grows-as the cup is
filled, it grows larger, leaving more room and desire for more fulfillment.
“The Lord confides in those who fear Him.” I am not satisfied with status quo.
I want more of God. I need more, I love getting more of Him.
Last night was the first night that I had a patient all on
my own, who labored, from start to finish during my shift, (I’ve labored women
who went to section on my own, but that changes things a lot). I got to
experience all of her labor with her. We established trust. We are the same age
during 9 months of the year. She trusted me as a clinician and I trusted her
body to do the work of having a baby. I
massaged strength into her already strong but doubting body. I spoke words of
confidence into her resilient spirit. I had soft beautiful music on which
reminded us both that this experience was about this baby and this mom, not a
mapped out hospital procedure. I taught her about her body and what it was
doing, about the rushes of energy she felt with each contraction, and how the
intensity that she felt is good, because it is her body working to bring her
baby closer to the outside world where she would be able to hold her baby in
her arms.
This mom had aching arms that most other first time moms
don’t experience. She had lost her first baby at 23 weeks gestation one year
ago. She ached to hold a healthy baby in her arms for the first time; to be
shown that she could successfully have a living, healthy baby that she could
have to love and raise. I turned up the volume of the fetal heart tone monitor
so that she could be reassured by that fast paced, persistent heartbeat.
Reassurance and love and attention are what she needed most.
And those are my favorite things to give. I had some paperwork to keep up with,
but when it became hard for her to bear the contractions, I was with her. My
attention and my energy were with her, with her body and spirit. Her work was
my work. Her pain was my pain. Her desire to have this baby was my desire. We
squeezed hands. We swayed together; she buried her face intensely into my chest
and then apologized, unnecessarily about getting blood and fluids on my scrubs
(from her hands). Doesn’t she know that in this moment, I couldn’t tell a
difference between her blood and my blood? We did no formal pushing. I didn’t teach her
how to push, which is an exception from the needs of most deliveries,
especially the epiduralized labors that numbs a mom’s sense of how to push her
baby out. In fact, as soon as I could tell she was pushing, I had her stop as
best as she could. This baby was coming now. I absolutely hate doing that-telling
moms to stop pushing, to not listen
to their body at that moment, which contradicts everything I had told her prior
to that moment. It feels ridiculous to make moms do this. All this progress,
which is the whole point, and now I say, “Okay try to breathe through your body’s
overwhelming urges to push your little one out, just until your doctor gets
here.” In my defense, I do work at a hospital and I’m supposed to get the
doctor there in time for the delivery. And darn it all, but I’m not a doctor. This
girls body did all of the work without any intentional facilitation by either
one of us. Earlier, when her labor was still slow, this mamma had asked me how
she would know when to push. A common question for first time moms. Her fear
was now hilariously obsolete as this sweet mom couldn’t help her body from
pushing, from doing this hard work, this labor that it was designed so
amazingly to do.
I asked another nurse to call the doctor to come for the
delivery. The baby’s heart rate began to drop significantly with each
contraction and between them. The fetal heart baseline became untraceable with
marked variability present. Not my favorite pattern. The heart rate also became
very difficult to trace. I turned the poor mom from one side to the other and
placed a fetal scalp electrode, which I hated to do, and felt it was
unnecessary, but given the urging from my peers and lack of solid experience
from which to draw from to make my own sure decisions, did it. Oxygen was
placed by a peer, probably just for extra measure to maintain as much fetal
reserve as possible, and I fluid bolused her, just in case there were any late
decals present that I hadn’t detected from the poor fetal heart tracing, which
there were not, as noted upon later close inspection. No interventions helped
and the waiting game began for the doctor, which was only a few minutes. A wise
and experienced colleague, present as the baby nurse, set the vacuum on my
table for my quick access should the need arise.
The doctor gloved up; I prepared the bed and prepped the
patient with betadine, my sweet new mom pushed twice, and the entire head and
body shot out in one foul swoop, landing right on his mom’s lower abdomen. Three chords wrapped tightly around his neck
accounted for his heart rate dropping with contractions. As his body had been
squeezed through the birth canal, the rope tightened. His tone and color were
decreased for the first few minutes but was overall a very beautiful,
cute-faced, 6-3 baby boy.
I had tons of paperwork to do between taking care of her
recovery. She ended up bleeding excessively (700ish mls), but was otherwise
healthy and happy and intact, with a beautiful, live baby boy resting on her
chest. I hugged them both and exclaimed at what a great job she did. And she
certainly did. At that moment, I remembered well why I am a labor/delivery
nurse. And I love it.
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