Happy Birthday Babies

I am a medical resident. I am a knitter. I am starting this blog to have a place to share the completely random and ridiculous thoughts that come into mind while I am working/knitting...and hopefully avoid doctor burnout.

I love delivering babies, every time one comes out I say hi to it. It screams back since it doesn’t quite comprehend that that is a friendly greeting in this world, its previous world having been a jumble of words (I can only assume, my memory not going back quite that far). Plus I like when it screams, that means its lungs are working and I can silently breathe a sigh of relief that I (or really the delivery room nurses) won’t need to resuscitate it. There are other parts that I breathe a sigh of relief for; that the parents are distracted enough not to pick up on the fact that when I tell the mom to push I often get confused and start bearing down myself. I’ll be in real trouble if I ever deliver a baby while pregnant.

I also breathe relief when the patient has a straightforward social situation: there is some type of family or support for the mom, be it a husband/wife/commonlaw, the mom has a place to live and some financial means to support the baby and is feeling well going in. The powerless feeling of delivering a baby to a woman who has no support, no house, no food, or isn’t capable of taking care of the baby is something I find difficult. I have often said the most important people in the hospital are the Social Workers.

I delivered babies on my birthday recently. I said “Happy Shared Birthday” to each one with a giant smile on my face. They screamed back.