Fall over here

Most of those were pictures from Susan's wedding. She got married last weekend to a guy named Justin, who is wearing an orange shirt in one of the pictures, but actually wore a tuxedo at his wedding. They are going to live 15 minutes away from me, in Calhoun, and get used to my face. Emily and Peter both came down for the wedding, the 3 of us had a good time together. The wedding was fun, too. Emily and I were in it, we wore dresses with really tight armholes. I caught the bouquet, because I dove for it and grabbed it away from some little girls. Just kidding, that's not cool.

Lately I've been less excited about births, but my 55th one was a really great one. It surprised me because this particular couple had been so irritating during her pregnancy, like tons of problems, going to the ER for dumb stuff, calling all the time, refusing to use over the counter treatments because Medicaid wouldn't pay for them, and ignoring my recommendations. But in labor her epidural stopped working, so we got it redosed and that didn't help, so she was basically on her own. She had one freak out, I-can't-do-this episode, but then she closed her eyes, grabbed her mom's hand and her husband's hand, and got it together. She pushed really effectively, and her husband was a decent coach, and I had to make a couple of decisions quickly and they were all the right ones.

At the end the baby's heart rate dropped down low so I cut an episiotomy and told the mom to push harder. (I don't think I'll ever get used to episiotomies. It feels wrong to use scissors to cut someone's skin.) And the cord was around the baby's neck but it wasn't that tight so I was able to slip it off before the rest delivered. I got the baby out fast and she started crying right away, so I put her on the pts. chest instead of handing her to the nursery nurse. That sort of pisses them off I think, because the nursery nurse is just standing there, waiting to get apgars and footprints and examine the baby...but those first moments look pretty unforgettable, so maybe it's worth it. Afterwards I was sewing for almost an hour-bleh. I was proud of myself because the doctor didn't show up until after the placenta was out, and I had it under control. Even when she started to bleed a lot, I remembered what to do and got it to stop. So it was cool. God knows what I need, and it was refreshing to be encouraged in my work.

So that noise. I just looked out my door. Four houses away, someone is washing their car with Spanish rap music playing. It sounds kind of sing-song-y and teasing.