30 Something Baby Doc

The other night on call was one of those nights I would like to quickly forget....... I was working at the county hospital if that's any indication. The night began fairly uneventful. We had 6 or 7 pregnants patient laboring on the unit and none of them were complicated or high risk.

The action started at about midnight, I was called for a delivery and everthing went very well, the first year resident (intern) did an excellent job, I just stood back and observed (I love not necessarily having to get dirty anymore). Immediately after the first delivery, we were call to a second deliver. This patient was pushing well and the baby was partially crowning but not yet ready to deliver. Suddenly, the baby's heart rate started to drop and would not recover . I asked the intern if she had ever used forceps before and she said, "no". There's a first time for everything, so I asked the nurse to quickly grab the forceps for us. The heart rate was still dangerously low while I was helping the intern apply the forceps. Suddenly the nurse from the triage area ran into the delivery suite and exclaims ..."we need a doctor in triage right away!! there's a patient delivering"
I responded, " I'm little tied up right now!!! where's my other 2 residents?" She says,"The 3rd year resident is off the floor and the cheif resident won't return his page. "

We quickly apply the forceps and deliver the baby and at the same time causing a nasty vaginal laceration. We hand the pediatricians this limp baby, but it quickly recovers and begin to cry...Thank God. I left the intern in the room to repair the laceration

I rip off my surgical mask and bloody gloves, sprint to the triage, and jump over the receptionist desk inorder to gain quicker acces to the examining room. I enter the room, the patient is screaming hysterically and the nurse is doing her best to keep the patients legs open. I grab some gloves and shout over the patient's ear piercing shreaks to request that she push. She quickly delivers the head, then closes her legs again and the baby's shoulders are stuck. Luckily anothet nurse enters the room and with their combined force , they are able to pry her leg open and the remainer of the baby delivers easily. The cheif resident shows up after all the action .

Suddenly the charge nurse storms in and says another patient in delivering on the unit. I leave the cheif resident in triage to deliver the placenta and I run the the unit. Luckily, this patient is more controlled and not delivering as rapidly. Unfortunately as I was getting ready to set up to deliver this patient the nurse from triage calls back and say that the patient I just delivered has inverted her uterus, is bleeding out and going into shock. SHIT!!!!!!!! I have the nurse call the 3rd year resident (who was off the floor earlier) and him inform him that he had to do this deliver so I can tend to the patient that was bleeding. The nurse got in touch with him and while he was on the phone with her, she relayed to me that he was tied up and couldn't come up. I exclaimed (unfortunately in front of the patient , her family and nurses...." TELL THAT MOTHERFUCKER TO GET HIS FUCKING ASS UP HERE AND DO THIS DELIVERY NOW!!!" I apologized to the patient immediately after my outburst. She exclaims " I don't care !! As long as someone is going to get this Fucking baby out of me!!" (pregnant women, you got to love em)

I run to the the triage room again and blood is all over the table and floor. There was a huge red bulging mass protruding out the patients vagina. The resident said she tried to put the uterus back in and couldn't. We rushed the patient back to the OR, and put her under general anesthesia. I attempted to put the patient's uterus back in and it wasn't easy. I had to brace myself against the operating room table for torque. I kept losing my footing and then realized I was slipping on blood. Finally I managed to get the uterus back and we were able to fluid resuscitate the patient. Damn !!! This is my third uterine inversion in one year. I must be an unlucky bastard. After several blood transfusions the patient was doing well with her baby at her bedside.

The deliveries continued all night straight thru to the morning....I really need a new job.