Special Delivery

Well, within the same day I saw (for the first time in my life) an abortion and a delivery. The abortion was done behind a curtain but I heard stuff that I didn’t really want to here, and being in the room while it was happening made me kind of uncomfortable and nauseous. I think whatever a person’s stance on abortion, you probably don’t want to be in the room while one is being performed. I saw the “results” in a turkey-baster- like object that the midwife left on the table. Needless to say, I was slightly disturbed. I never got the specifics of this woman’s case. I guess I could have asked what her reasons were behind the decision- financial, marital, her age, etc- for the sake of keeping mental records on these activities, but considering what had just happened I thought it rude at the time.

The delivery was an interesting experience as well. I assumed when I was “invited” by the doctors to watch the birth that I would enter a room full of women cheering on their sister, daughter, niece, what have you. But instead, I found myself one of three people in the room- the other two people being the midwife and the soon-to-be mother. So I’m sitting there close-quarters to a seventeen year old girl who is clutching her ankles and choking back her screams as she pushes the unwilling kid out. As the baby starts to crown I do my best attempt at cheerleader, but since I talk like a baby myself in Khmer I just ball up my fists in a “yay!” response and say “la-aw, la-aw” over and over again. The midwife looks over at me like I’m crazy and all she keeps repeating to the girl is “stop crying” and “push harder” and “don’t be lazy”.

Another doctor walks in the room and tries to convince me to move to a better view: extreme close up. I try to convince him that, “no, I’m good thanks, I can see her crowning from here’’, but that doesn’t stop him from insisting that I get a closer looks, and maybe put on some gloves just in case. He doubles up the gloves on my hands, “just in case”, and then motions for me to help the midwife, who is now starting to tug the child out as its shoulders seem to be stuck. Sensing that things were about to get messy fast I start to unbutton my new shirt I happened to be wearing that day so I’d just be wearing my tank top as a smock. Three buttons down, something burst and blood and liquid squirted three feet across the room. Fortunately I was not in the line of fire but the near accident made me grateful I didn’t take the doctor’s advice to be in the position to see, and probably feel, everything coming out. The midwife then plopped the baby on the mother’s stomach as she clamped and cut the cord, and then placed the baby on the table where it cried while the midwife went to work on the

mother again for the (enter the Twilight Zone themes song here) AFTERBIRTH...dun dun dun! I won’t go into details about what that looks like, there are Google images I’m sure if anyone is interested, but it kind of reminded me of Will Smith’s first encounter with the alien ooze in its fallen capsule in Independence Day. The midwife had to go to town to try to pull this creature-like thing out, yanking on the umbilical cord and pressing on the mother’s stomach, and after she finally got the sucker out she turns it around and inside- out so I can see it in all its glory. She then took a few bits of cotton and stuck her hand in there and swabbed her out. Naturally. There was something vaguely familiar about the action that I couldn’t put my finger on, until I remembered the line from the children’s story...”He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a....placenta?” Hmm, close enough.

The midwife was still working on the mother, perhaps sewing her back up a bit since she made a few snips here and there during the delivery, so she asked me to wrap the baby, weigh it and then show the family members waiting outside the room. Great, I think I can do this. But I approach the baby and the scissors are still clamped onto the umbilical cord and surely I can’t wrap the scissors in with the baby. So the midwife comes over and makes adjustments and I fumble to try and use the towel underneath the baby to flap over it and create some sort of bundle. “Like baby Jesus in the Nativity scene” I reminded myself for a reference. Well my bundle was weak and the midwife lost faith in my assumed innate maternal instincts and took over wrapping the babe- first a cloth for a diaper (“oh, that would probably help”) and then folding in the sides of the towel so it frames the babies face and feels taught like the womb it so recently emerged from. I then took the baby and weighed it (“yay, I have experience with this!”) and then brought it to its mother to take a look before I brought it out to the waiting room for the aunts to see.

So the obvious question arises, “Is it a boy or a girl?” “Um, it’s a boy!” I announce. The aunts let out some guttural sounds that I’m pretty sure translate to “what the heck are you talking about?” And the midwife from the other room yells out reassuringly, “No, it’s a girl.” Well, if they knew all along what did they ask me for? I’m pretty sure I was so mesmerized by the sheer length of the umbilical cord that I assumed I saw balls in there somewhere, and with the scissors in the way while I was trying to wrap her...well, I don’t think I’m cut out for announcement of said genitalia.

I then placed the baby on the bed where she could rest while she awaited her mother to join her. Apparently I couldn’t get that right either, as I momentarily forgot that babies are to rest on their sides propped up by pillows instead of plopped on their backs on the hard surface. Strike three in the supposed universal Maternal Instincts department.

Upon relaying this story to my mother (biological mother in America, not to be confused with my Cambodian host mother), and my related fears of possible childbirth horrors in my own (distant) future, my mother responded, “Oh, don’t worry, it’s not that bad.” and then after pausing to think about what she had just said she added, “Just stay away from pregnant women who are about to pop, then you’ll forget what you’d be getting into if you decide to have kids in the future.” Ha, great plan, mom- except for the fact that a good half of my patients are preggers and about to blow at a moment’s notice. If there is one thing I learned from this experience- epidurals are your friends! And next time I “assist” in a birth, I’ll come prepared with double-layered gloves on hands, a smock for the splatter, galoshes for the bloody matter, and a stronger stomach for the latter.