Today Is A Day I Will NEVER Forget

Today I had the opportunity to watch my first baby delivery. I am still amazed and dumbfounded on how absolutely amazing this experience was. Let me tell you about it.

I am a member of the OB/GYN club and we have arranged it so that we can shadow doctors (one student at a time for two hour blocks) at the local hospital. I have had my time scheduled for about 2 months now and today was my day to go. I made special arrangements to get over to the hospital since I am lacking in wheels at the moment. When I went to the OB/GYN clinic I was expecting to follow a physician, resident, or medical student around on pre-natal check-ups. Boy was I pleasantly surprised. When I arrived, one of the doctors explained to me a fetal/maternal heart monitor and showed me what one of his patients' readings were and welcomed me to stay longer than my scheduled time if I wanted to see his patient deliver. I had said that I was very interested and he had expected her to deliver in 2 - 3 hours. We (the doctor, medical student, and I) went on a pre-natal check-up and then when we came out...not 45 minutes later...the doctor was called down because this patient was ready to start pushing. We rushed down and I watched him deliver a tiny baby boy. 5 pounds 10 ounces. When the head started to appear it really hit me that this was a real-live person ready to come into this world. I got shivers running from head to toe. When she finally delivered, I stood there all sweaty and then I started to cry. Right in front of everybody. It must have been comical to see this first year medical student, standing there in the midst of chaos crying. Oh man. Then I regained my composure, I watched them deliver the placenta, and then the doctor explained to me all about the placenta. It was pretty neat. After the nurses had cleaned up this baby, they placed him into the mothers arms, at which point, I began to tear up again. Oh man.

Needless to say, this was a great experience. I have never seen a delivery before and this was a fantastic way to end up my first year of medical school. It is things like this that really make me happy to have chosen to go to medical school. It is so easy to get caught up in studying like a mad-woman, sitting for hours on end staring at a computer hoping that something makes it through my thick skull. One day, I won't have to study for ten hours each day, one day I will be able to be around patients, one day I will be able to make a difference in a life, and....one day I will be able to actually deliver a baby!