last night there was, at the beginning of my night shift, only one patient in labor....no big deal. looked like a little uterine irritability and occasional "real" contraction...she had just arrived and was telling the evening people "hurts a little" she was 34 weeks and had a h/o ptl with her first child. had been on the unit earlier in the day with similar vague complaints. was never checked...sent home...now i get report ( i am the only delivery nurse on ) and just as the evening crew is walking through the door, the patient tells us she thinks she has to move her bowels and feels a little pressure. still not looking too uncomfortable, but the eve nurses and i, veterans of delivery, all look at each other...we'll hang around, they say....we try to beep the doc.. the heck with him, he isn't calling back and forget the policy of us not checking someone under 36 weeks without prior notification from the doc. we can't find him....he calls back in the midst of the exam...from the huge eyes of the eve nurse, i know it isn't good....7 cms with bulging membranes....too late to ship...we are going to have a baby. an early baby....doc arrives, and eve nurses stay. i have only them for back up..thankyou delivery god! arom by the doc...large bloody..abruption on a 34 weeker....good outcome...baby with some resp problems...had pt come in any other time, who knows what would have happened? i see and experience this more often than not...couple of winters ago during a blizzard, we had someone in labor crash big time during (of course) the night shift. no way anesthesia or any or people on call could get to the hospital on time...but, by some miracle, they had come in just an hour earlier to take a stabbing vic to the or...they were just ready to go and the placement of the knife in the victim was in a non lethal place. he had missed all his crucial organs so could be bumped for our section....baby saved.....i was just wondering how many of you would like to share some stories of miraculous saves and cooincidences that led to them...we had no patients one entire night shift and the incoming doc called by phone to tell us he was on the way. unknown to us, outgoing doc left a few minutes early as it wasn't too busy for the last 10 hours. that puts us roughly at 0630. as i hung up from incoming doc (on his car phone, to which i do not have the number), in comes a pt via ambulance-gravida 7 para6....she is in labor. i look at her pants and ask her what color they are..she tells me white. they are totally red. we have an abruption. i call the call room ( i then find out no one is there and pp tells me the doc left early). nursery has just sent all their babies to the moms. they are now my backup. we have the foley, iv and that stuff done within 5 minutes. incoming doc walks through the door with a mean look on his face. i tell him i swear it just happened...just so happens this early anesthesia is there and ready to go. from decision to incision 12 minutes. good outcome...but if it was any earlier...who knows? for the miracles that happen to us, i have gotten into the habit of thanking "delivery god?" what about all of you? i know you all have similar stories to relate.....and probably not just in ob...seems so much more pressing and crucial in ob somehow, at least to me...
