The First Baby

I told Dr. Fee and Dr. Lena that I wanted to catch a baby. I know, that doesn't sound like the most technical of terms, but it was all I could think about doing. They chuckled. They said that would be fine - I'd have to just hang around the labor ward and see what happens. Today was our first day in Minga, a little village southwest of Chipata. We got up this morning, dressed for the first time in our scrubs and white coats, ate breakfast and waited outside the hospital for Dr. Lena to take us on rounds. We didn't make it on rounds at all today - we were notified quickly that three women were already in labor.

Before too long, Dr. Fee had arrived. She's a high risk Ob/Gyn surgeon, delivering risky babies for a living. What a remarkable woman, so intelligent, kind, poised - everything you'd want her to be. She has taught at medical schools in the past, so she's used to giving instruction, and I felt comfortable with her immediately. There were three beds in the labor ward and three women filling them - one for each of us, Sharla, Mike and me. Sharla and Mike quickly walked to the first and second beds, and I to the third. Dr. Fee explained that she wanted to deliver the first baby so that we could all watch one before delivering on our own. She showed us how to examine the cervix, sliding our index and middle fingers in, pressing down on the perineum, widening our fingers to trace the circular edge, feeling the baby's head and fontanels. I was nervous and excited - ecstatic I think.

It was Mike's patient that went first, and Dr. Fee caught, talking us through it while Sharla and Mike held the woman's knees and ankles, and I stood staring behind Dr. Fee. The vagina stretched and stretched, exposing the wet, round, curly haired head of the baby. Dr. Fee guided the head out gently, feeling with her fingers for the neck, making sure the umbilical cord wasn't there. Suddenly a face appeared, eyes closed, covered in whitish mucus. She maneuvered the shoulders through and guided the rest of the body as it slid out - a healthy baby girl.

I seem to have skipped over so much. The labor took a long time - there was blood and shit and piss and screaming. There were words of encouragement, gloves taken on and off. There was moaning and grunting, people coming in and out, flies flying, landing and being shooed away. There was the distinct smell of fresh blood, a language I didn't understand being spoken, sunlight coming in from the windows and sweat running down my chest and stomach. There was new, pulsing, screaming life right in front of me.