The following was written in December of 2009. I saved it as a draft and promptly set it aside, needing to get my client's permission prior to publishing it. I got busy... life went on.
Having finally decided to spend some more time writing, I realized it was time to clean it up and share it. Client's permission has been obtained.
December 26, 2009
I've been processing this for a few weeks now and I think it's about to time to share it. If it wasn't for my attendance at a neonatal resuscitation class last month, this story may have turned out much differently.
I attended a
home birth on December __. The midwife and her assistant
left four or five hours after the birth. Approximately 20 minutes after
they left, the baby began to change colors (he looked rather purple), suddenly made a strange sound and stopped
breathing.
It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I
was so terrified I was going to have to resuscitate this little guy and
I'd have no idea what I was doing. I wanted the floor to open up and
swallow me up. His parents were pretty much frozen.
I
picked him up, laid him flat on his back and made sure his airway was
open. I remembered the first thing to do is to stimulate the baby (checking to see if the baby was in primary apnea and praying that he was... to whom I was praying, I have no idea) so I
just started tickling the bottoms of his feet with my nails. I did it
for about 10 seconds (maybe less? maybe more?) and he got MAD. He sucked in a big breath and
started screaming his head off. It was one of the most beautiful sounds
I've ever heard in my life. Within seconds he was pinking up again.
Dad called the midwife and she said just to keep a close eye on him. About a
half hour later Baby spit up a big wad of phlegm and he's been doing just
fine ever since.
I am so VERY grateful I attended that class (literally, only about 3 weeks prior to this birth),
but even more grateful that I studied for it. Otherwise I would have been totally and completely unprepared.
We'd have had to call 911 and that little guy would have ended up being
transported and subjected to all kinds of hideous interventions at the hospital.
It was
a great experience for me because I got a very tiny taste of what it
would be like to be the midwife responsible for the mother and baby...
things don't always go smoothly and when you are the only person
available to provide potentially life saving care to someone... whoa. I
mean... whoa.
Sometimes things just happen for
a reason. I'm not a religious person... but if I ever were to
really believe in God... well, it would be an event like that that
would do it.
American Hearth Association - Infant CPR
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