I hated him.
I checked the monitor, touched the belly that was growing tighter again. Sure enough, she was having another. Labor could be weird like that sometimes. Hours of nothing, then everything happened at warp speed. Maybe her doctor was secretly a genius, and I should bow down and worship by his crystal ball.
“It’s been a couple hours since you went to the bathroom,” I said, knowing that a full bladder often increased contractions. I pulled up her gown to release the monitors she — and her freaking doctor — insisted be kept in place. “Let’s get you up. You can use the bathroom and walk around a little bit.”
She gave a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. “I suppose. It is tiring just lying here. I’m so used to being active. Just a second.” She raised her camera, took a picture, and I watched in astonishment as she typed, “Last pee break before baby!!” across the screen.
Lowering the bedrail, I helped her to her feet. It really was amazing how small her baby bump was for forty-one weeks. “How much do you work out?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Her hand went to her belly as she leaned heavily onto me. You’d have thought she’d just had major surgery from how slowly she moved. “At least twice a day, about two hours each session.”
I gasped. “You’re kidding.”
“No, and that was just in the past few weeks. I didn’t want the baby to get too big, create those atrocious stretch marks.”
Of course, stretch marks would be her primary worry.
More concerned now, I asked, “And what do you eat to stay so slim?”
We finally made it to the toilet. She sighed as a loud stream of urine hit the water. “Mostly green vegetables, a little fruit, but not too much. I have to get back into shape immediately, you know. Don’t want hubby turning me in for a younger model.”
I stared at her, and for the first time, saw something close to real emotion cross her face. It was there and gone in an instant, but it caused a flood of compassion to hit me. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do that. You’re perfect, and you’re giving him a baby to love.”
She blinked rapidly and yanked at the toilet paper, pulling off nearly a quarter of the roll. She wiped, and I helped her stand and get to the sink to wash her hands. I checked the color of her urine before flushing it all away, then snapped on new gloves as she stood and looked at herself in the mirror.
“You think I’m ridiculous, don’t you?” she asked softly but continued to stare at her reflection.
Yes. Yes, I did.
“No, not at all,” I said and went to stand behind her, my gaze meeting hers in the mirror. “I think you live a very different lifestyle than I do, with a different set of pressures.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered and began blinking hard again.
My heart squeezed a little. “Scared of what?”
“Carl’s never seen me without makeup,” she confessed, and I blinked. I’d expected her to talk about the pain of childbirth, being a good mom, being able to breastfeed with DDD implants.
“Never?”
Looking miserable, she shook her head. “And I don’t want him to, you know, watch the birth. I don’t want him to see me look bad… down there. I—” Her eyes widened, and she groaned as another contraction hit her.
After it had passed, I suggested we go for a walk, maybe finish our conversation as I tried to figure out the relationship dynamics and how best to care for my patient’s emotional needs as well as the physical ones.
She shook her head. “I just want to lie down again. I’m feeling a bit dizzy.”
Holding onto her tighter, I asked, “When did you last eat? A real meal?”
She glanced up at me and sighed. “A couple days ago.” She lowered her voice. “I heard rumors of women, you know, pooping during labor. I wanted to clean out my system so it didn’t happen to me.”
It also explained why her full-term baby was so small. I gritted my teeth, wanting to kick her doctor and her husband in the balls. She’d probably been dieting the entire time in addition to working out like a fiend.
“Well, let’s get you back into bed, and I’ll talk to your doctor about adding some additional nourishment intravenously. You can’t eat right now, but some glucose could help. I’ll check your blood sugar once you’re settled.”
Once she was back in bed and I’d placed the monitors back on, I checked and she sure enough was hypoglycemic. Knowing her asshole doctor would want to know her delivery status, I lowered the head of the bed and warned the other two people in the room that I was ready to check her. The husband turned away, his eyes never leaving the computer monitor while the stylist looked on curiously.
“Heels together,” I instructed Mrs. HW5. “Let your knees drop to the bed.”
And… gush.
Amniotic fluid burst out in a sudden flood, the color darkened with the baby’s meconium. Shit. Literally.
Worse, a section of the umbilical cord presented itself from her vagina. Just like that, we’d gone from prima donna labor to full-scale emergency in an instant. I glanced at the monitor, and damn, the baby’s heart rate plummeted.
I made a promise to never criticize a doctor again, even though I knew that promise would last about half a minute.
Jumping on the bed, I jammed two fingers into the writhing, screaming woman, found the baby’s head where it was pressing on the cord and gently lifted, taking pressure off the life-giving cord. The heart rate increased, giving us some time.
“What are you doing?” the husband shouted, launching himself to his feet so fast his precious laptop crashed to the floor.
Ignoring him, I twisted around and jammed my other hand on the call button, then began lowering the head of the bed even farther, putting Mrs. Harlington-Worthington, the Fifth into the Trendelenburg position, hoping to decrease the pressure on the cord.
I needed to give her oxygen but couldn’t risk removing my fingers to reach for it, and because of the silk sheets, I kept sliding around, making my precarious perch even more precarious. I felt Mr. Worthington, the Fifth’s tight fingers on my shoulder. “Get off of her. I’ll have your job on a silver platter.”
I winced at the pain in my shoulder but didn’t stop holding the baby’s head off the cord. Carefully arranging my face into my calmest expression, I explained the emergency in simple terms. “The umbilical cord has prolapsed, meaning it has slipped out of the cervix ahead of the baby.” Mr. W5’s face went milky white, and he swayed a little to the side. With my free hand, I clutched at him, not needing a bleeding or concussed father to worry with too. “The baby’s head is compressing the cord. I’m holding the baby’s head up. We’re okay for the moment, but we’ll—”
“Can I help you?”