True tales from the OR

Several people have stopped by my hospital room to apologize today. Hospital staff people. I think the last one said she was the head of the surgery department.

It was a full moon the night the baby was born. And wow! You could tell.

When we arrived at the labor and delivery floor, it was actually quite peaceful. I was nervous, as I always am, about having a C-section. I had a really bad experience with my firstborn during surgery, and it has left me jittery even nine years later.

All was going perfectly until the end when the doctor was sewing my incision.

Another doctor flew into the operating room and called to my doctor, “We need your help!”

He looked up at her with this look of, “Hello? In case you didn’t notice, I’m performing surgery here.”

I was thinking, “Umm. Excuse me? Can they really DO that?”

The woman yelled, “We have a 25-week baby being delivered breach. We need you NOW!”

My doctor looked shocked, but he started to move.

Now, I was thinking, “OK. The whole reason I have chosen this doctor is because of his ability to do a C-section and sew me up nice and neat and here we are to the sewing part and he’s leaving. Humph.”

“It’s OK,” my midwife assured me.

Then I realize that the mom in the next room needed my doctor a lot more than I did at that point.

A few minutes later, and he was back.

We found out the next day that my doctor probably saved that baby’s life. He or she was half out of the mom feet first and unresponsive. He delivered the baby in a matter of minutes. The other doctors were able to revive the baby, and we heard that the little one was doing OK.

We also heard today that my doctor is one of the best in the hospital at delivering breach babies, and since he was the closest doctor to the situation, that is why they called for him.

We’re all glad it didn’t happen five minutes earlier when he wouldn’t have been able to leave my surgery.

The craziness continued the rest of the evening with twins being born and several more emergency C-sections. I was glad to be the calmest case of the night. And thankful that everyone was OK.

No need to apologize.

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