Reflective Essay: The Labor Nurse

The whole cross was deserted as far as the eye could see. I quickly placed a call to labor from post partum’s phone and received an excited answer from our ward clerk Adriane. “Rebecca, we need you here NOW we are going back with the set of twins in 405 and you need to cover.” I quickly asked if there was any other labor nurse present.
Adriane’s reply was short “Mary!” My heart sank!
To describe this woman is almost beyond me. I will start by saying she is a 60-something-woman holding onto 40-something. She is smart, kind, sweet, slightly naïve, hilarious and beautiful, but at this time I knew none of this about Mrs. Mary. What I did know was Mary suffered from “tunnel vision.” All nurses know this person; the whole hospital could be on fire and Mrs. Mary would be too focused on …show more content…
I reported to her the urgency of the situation in just a few short words: “31 weeker, twins, 7 centimeters, feels like pushing, footling breech, with minimal prenatal care. Adrian is calling the attending and Dr. Gupta,” and that was all that was needed to get Nance moving. I breathed an additional sigh of relief; Nance was an exceptional NICU nurse and I knew that these little ones would be in great hands. Back to my patient who continued to breathe through her contractions. I calmly, told her that we were ready to go to the OR for delivery. I unplugged her monitors and as I did I noted two beautiful heartbeat tracings and continued contractions in a beautiful pattern of every 2 minutes. How ironic that we battle to induce these results in patients who have actually passed their due dates. I felt mocked by Mother Nature as my patient’s labor progressed when we would have preferred to dissuade its arrival for nine more weeks. I unplugged the patient’s bed, breathed deeply, and prayed that the team had arrived as I pushed my patient out the