Signs along the way

Fall is officially here! I rang in the occasion with an overnight hospital shift as an observing student. I'll spare the details but I did get to assist in a premature twin c-section among other things. I had a good laugh since when I arrived at the hospital the obgyn asked what my backround was so I mentionend I'd been to births as a doula but had never seen anything like twins or a c-section. No one could have predicted that a woman would have walked in 5 hours later needing to deliver twins via c/s. The obgyn smiled and said: sometimes you get what you ask for. It gave me goosebumps...

It might sound like I appropriated the woman's birth as my own experience. There wasn't much room for anything else. That is part of what caused all the moral dilemas I have with the MEP. How strange it is to be in a position of fully taking advantage of a woman's rite of passage into motherhood. Especially for someone who anticipates being 'with-woman'. I do have to note however, that this particular woman had planned an elective c/s and wanted nothing to do with vaginal birth, she fully saw her pregnancy and delivery as a clinical process (means to an end in becoming a mother since she had IVF and did not want to risk the effects of labour on her kids/precious investments. These are her words not mine and I know that her situation is not fully representative of all women having elective c/s and or using artificial means of reproduction) All in all, this was a rich learning experience. Despite all of the controvertial stirrings it raised.

More on what I experienced as an observing midwifery student to come.