This will be the first time in a long time that I will blog about work just because the experience is too much for me to put up with. I have this wonderful feeling, like the high that some heroine dependent feels whenever a baby is being delivered specially in a spontaneous method. That high is on it’s climax whenever the OB hands me the baby’s body then after cutting the cord, totally entrusts the life of the tiny little creature to my hands. I feel very important. The “baby-you-wouldn’t-live-if-I’m-not-here” feeling immediately deposits a sky-scraping dosage of adrenaline to my whole body. I love the feeling so what I do is really take care of the baby, hold it so gently, rub the blood clots all over its body soothingly and make sure that it’s dry, warm and comfortable while trying to be familiar on the new world that it is experiencing.
I remember Grey’s Anatomy. George will drag Meredith to the nursery whenever everything is just getting out of hand. They work on the Surgical Department which is totally hardcore so they go through some kind of therapy on every occasion they spend looking at those little angels in the nursery. That’s just so sweet. Babies. I adore babies. I always say to myself that I’d like to mother a couple of them when the time comes.
Yesterday, the hospital was I must say benign for a Monday. A few out patient having their check-ups, a couple of admitted patients for induced labor and some in-patients ready to go home. While I was busy finishing the charts, I heard some commotion down the ER. After finally making sure that everything’s okay in the ward, I saw that there was a direct admission so I went straight to the Delivery Room. Seeing my Senior Nurse calling my name in a very nervous and toxic (as the medical people say) voice, I grabbed the scrub gown, mask and cap and took a look at what’s inside. What I saw was a floor soaked with amniotic fluid and a woman with no gown, no IVF, no oxygen in a lithotomy position pushing and bearing down already. If some doctor have seen what just happened we’re so going to make an incident report for breaking all the rules in sterility. When I saw the area where the baby’s supposed to come from, it was red, like fresh blood red in color which is very unusual because if the presenting part is the head it should be black because of the hair or pale for the face.. me I’d accept any color, any color aside from red. My Senior Nurse was asking me “Cj, ulo ba yan? Sa tingin mo ulo? “ and I was like, “Hindi yan ulo mam! Bakit red? Baka cord or.. ano yan?”. We are both on panic stage when I heard the door open and saw the OB. The baby’s head was finally delivered showing us a part of it’s brain. Apparently, that was the red part presenting earlier the delivery. “Anencephalic baby”, said the doctor. According to Wikipedia, Anencephaly is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th day of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Children with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres.
Once the doctor cut the cord and I have the baby on my hands she told me to show the baby to the mother. I was so apprehensive, it breaks my heart to see such little being in that condition but I know I have to do my job, so I showed the baby on my hands on the crying woman on the DR table. She screamed upon the sight of her baby. “Baby Girl, Baby Out: 5:30PM” was all I was able to say. I placed the baby on the crib and was asked by the OB to come with her as she shows the baby to the father. This is beyond tragic, I thought. The father naturally cried when he saw the baby. “Tatawagin po ni CJ yung Pedia pero usually po oras or araw lang ang aantayin natin. Kung din po talaga para sa atin, kailangan tanggapin na lang natin. Wala po tayong magagawa.”, said the doctor. I took the baby in the NICU not knowing what to do first. Should I suction her? No. It will further increase her ICP. I opened the oxygen tank, gave her O2 and kept her warm with the droplight. For a good 5 minutes I think, I just stared at the baby. She’s breathing, heart rate is still there, she’s got a cleft lip, and yeah.. her brain is outside her skull. I was trying to make her cry. A good cry is a sign of good coping mechanism to the change of environment but I know that this case is an exemption. “Baby, laban ka ha?”, I told her when the OB showed up and told me to fix the baby. When she left I cleaned the baby and dressed her. I realized that I was crying while I was doing it. I just stopped crying when I remembered that the brain is bare and my tears might drop there. I did the routine then the Pedia came and told us that we’ll just have to give Palliative care. Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of diseasesymptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. Simply put we’d do nothing. :(
It was really a depressing experience for me. I felt like all my energy went towards the sadness that I felt. My muscles felt weak and I just wanted to home right away. I think the baby is really about to die but she still wanted to see her parents that’s why she fought to live even for just a couple of hours. Now I’m sure she’s in heaven. An undoubtedly better place.
