Well, I was given the privilege of being the 'second person/doula/support person/general entertainment' in the room for my friends' baby. Providentially, they happened to have the baby on my day off work, so I trundled over there, and stuck around for 12 hours until she had the baby, catching the last subway train home again. I must say, watching and experiencing it from the other side of the fence, there are a few observations I should make:
1. It's really boring, lying in the bed for hours and hours on end. At work, I usually flit in and out of the room, making some (witty) observations, and then going on to the next patient, so to me, it looks like there's progress, since I come in every few hours. However, having to sit there on the other end, it's a pretty long process. Thank goodness for Settlers of Catan, as that helped pass the time.
2. I can understand why some patients complain that they rarely, if ever, see nurses and doctors while they're in the hospital. Now, perhaps I'm biased, as this doesn't happen in my own hospital, but I couldn't believe how little one-on-one nursing care my friend obtained - in the twelve hours I was there, she got a total of 45 minutes (45 minutes!) of direct nursing care, given by SIX different nurses (since they were all on various stages of break and lunch). That is ridiculous.
3. The whole process is a lot more intrinisically interesting when it's a baby involving people that you love.
4. Usually it's pretty easy for me to throw off the 'medical hat' when I'm dealing with realms of medicine that I'm not terrible proficient or interested in, but I found it was harder to take it off in this situation, likely a combination of getting 'mama-bear-ish' for my friends (with their 45 minutes of nursing care), and the fact that it's the one thing in life I feel I'm actually skilled in.
Anyways, they both did awesomely, and the baby was pretty darn cute and chub-a-lub coming out, so it was all fun and games, really, at the end of the day...
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Julia - you were SUCH a special part of our day... in SO many ways :) Thanks again for being there. And being 'mama-bearish'... we look forward to sharing many more of life's moments (both ours and yours) that God gives us with you...
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