"Are you baby sitting"?

I was shadowing the charge nurse (the nurse who doesn't have a patient assignment but manages the unit for the day) for 6 hours. Right after we received a report for the day, we were called into a patient's room who was in A LOT OF PAIN. She had received an epidural about half an hour before; however, her right side was in excruciating pain due to extremely intense contractions. By the way, in my opinion this the worst scenario for a laboring mom because you are expecting to be pain free due to the wonders of epidurals and most likely not prepared for the intensive of pain. The nurse had checked her "status" about 5 minutes ago and she was 4 cm. When the doctor decided to check her again since she was in so much pain, she was 8 cm. She had changed 4 cm in about 5-10 minutes. The rule of thumb is about 1 cm an hour for a first time mom and faster for an experienced mom. She was obviously ready to deliver in just few minutes and her husband was waiting in the hallway with their 22-month old son. Since it wasn't my patient and I was just observing, I offered to watch the little boy so the dad could be in there with his wife. So I ended up sitting in the hallway with this sleepy 22-month old while I could hear his mom in agonizing pain and then about 10 minutes later, I could hear the cry of the newborn. This birth was so different from the other births that I had seen in the past 2 weeks that I was little disappointed to not be in the middle of the action. However, I feel that part of nursing is showing compassion and meeting the patient's needs and by watching their little boy so the dad could hold the mother's hand as she delivered this baby was more important than seeing all the details of the birth. All the other nurses and staff who passed me in the hallway kind of chuckled as they saw me baby sitting the little boy. However, I am glad that I was able to help the family in some way.

So the reason why this woman was in so much pain was the fact that her uterus did not relax between contractions which increased the intensity of them. I have seen plenty of videos of natural child births and see few "live" ones and this poor patient seemed to be in a whole another level of pain. 

Another twist to the story is the fact that the baby most likely had Down's Syndrome, which came as a complete surprise to the parents. I called Troy after the my shift and told him of the events and he said "so that could happen to us, right?" He meant the fact that we haven't done any kind of genetic testing and obviously there is a chance that our baby could have some kind of a health problem.  I obviously want a healthy baby more than anything; however, it is comforting to know that each child has their own special purpose here and we won't be given more than we can handle. Though, I do have to say that if our child will be a clone of Troy when he was a little kid, he or she could be pushing the limits:) He was a terror!!