My First Full Shift and My Heart Breaks....

Yesterday was my first full shift at the hospital .  It started at 4pm.  In the middle of updates from the past midwifery team we were called to an expected still birth.  We  all  walked very quickly down the hall and what I saw when I turned the corner will be forever ingrained in my mind. A young, black woman lying on the already filthy bathroom floor(this is the bathroom used by all patients)in a pool of blood, amnitoic fluid,  and feces.  The doctor was taking her limp dead baby from her and disappeared down the hall.  The mother lay there staring at us, silent. No one spoke to her.  No one even tried to touch her.  I was shocked by the coldness of the situation and the total lack of care for the  mother.  I bent down to speak to her and realized my limited Spanish wasn't going to help.  She was Haitian and spoke only French .  She also was HIV+.  I did the only thing I could;I prayed outloud for Jesus to help her.

The doctor came back with a wheel chair. By this time one of the midwives on the team, who spoke French,was talking to the silent mother.  The doctor motioned for her to get in the wheelchair gave me her IV bag to carry.  Off to the delivery room we went to deliver the placenta and check the mother.  When we got to the room the mother, still in her soiled jean skirt and top, was told to stand up, turn around and put her feet into the wheelchair to climb onto the unadjustable delivery table. There she was examined with about 12 med students watching.

As  the examine was over I left the room. It brought back memeories of my own still birth.  The compassion and love my nurse gave me was incredible compared to this. I thought of how hard this must be for this mother and my heart ached for her. I began to wonder if I could do this:  birth, this way.  This woman was only showed compasision by the midwives and the staff just didn't seem to want to love her and care for her.  It was painful to watch.   And then I cried.