So I've been pretty crap at blogging Vietnam! I blame the shitbox wifi in my room. Sitting downstairs now glaring at my battery meter.
GUESS WHAT. Today I went to an obstetrics hospital. Borrowed scrubs and a student ID so I wouldn't look too conspicuous. What, that's totally legit!
It was awesome! And a little bit icky. But mostly awesome. I saw four births: one immediately afterwards (placenta still on the way), one C-section and two from start to finish. That is, we had a look of them before the "pushpushush!! HARDER! you can do better than that!!!" started. I even, ahem, assisted on one. That's to say, I felt the belly to see when it was taut, and was meant to yell at the mother to push and tap on the belly to help the contractions, except I was kinda shy and didn't fully understand the instructions.
The actual process of childbirth looks, um, kind of painful. When it's my turn, give me the frigging drugs already! And the cutting and sewing bit - only under lidocaine here - seems like torture. Eww. And the delivery suite wasn't very friendly. Women just lying there with their legs open, no one paying much attention to them. Is that the way to welcome a new life into the world? I entertained notions of having a hippie, birthing centre, water-birth, midwife type of thing, but then I can't be a doctor and forsake western medicine entirely hey. Maybe a hippie birthing centre next door to a major tertiary hospital. Also, yknow what? Newborns are so not cute. Maybe after they're cleaned up and oxygenated, not so much when cone-headed and purple and covered with dodgy slime and being held upside-down by the legs by a midwife who's suctioning said dodgy slime from its nose, mouth, and anus by the same apparatus (yes IN THAT ORDER, thank god).
My Viet student friend ultrasounded another woman's belly and after mucking around for a while trying to find it, we finally got the heartbeat. The mother's face lit up, as no doubt mothers' faces everywhere light up. My "omfg that rocks!!" grin was reflected in her face.
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2 comments:
Definitely after seeing some of the (let us euphemistically say) difficult births I am rather open to the idea of involving anaesthetists (if necessary).
Some can be so beautiful though (but I draw the line at calling 4th degree tear beautiful). The whole mother child thing is though.
In Canada, you can totally do the granola waterbirth no drug midwife thing in a hospital. Call it a compromise.
Then you have the OB/peds teams right there just in case. Win!
Personally, I'm thinking GP delivery with epidural, as and when it becomes an issue.
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