Yesterday and Midwifery

So, I had fully intended to do the standard 'Happy New Year' post yesterday, but I was too tired. The night before last, my wife started having contractions and we thought she was going to have our baby. We got to the hospital at about 2:30 in the morning and didn't get the "No Baby/Go Home" speech from the nurse, not doctor, nurse until about 4:15 am. That bit was particularly frustrating because I have to leave for work at 8 am, and had not slept at all. So, my apologies for not being trendy yesterday, I was kind of out of it all day.

Speaking of medical personnel...

As many of the people who read this (i.e. co-workers) know, my wife and I are going to have a baby. We are first-time parents and are very excited about having our son, who we will name John Brandon. One issue we have repeatedly had to deal with is the midwife. Now, I know that midwives have to be registered nurses, do their nurse residency, and then go through a three-year Midwifery residency concentrating only on OB/GYN issues; so they are not, as my wife feared, some lady that wanders into the hospital yelling "I done can birth have them baby!" in sort of a Farmer Fran-ish voice. However, my wife and I would still feel more comfortable with a doctor. My mother, who is also my family doctor, even said that we should not write off the idea of having a midwife, but, my wife and I both feel more comfortable with an M.D.

This, apparently, is an affront to everyone and everything at our hospital. From the moment we went for our pregnancy test, they have been desperately trying to force us into a meeting with the midwife. I know that sounds crazy, but we have had to reschedule multiple appointments because, after we have said, "We don't want to see the midwife, we want to see our doctor," the nurses stick us with the midwife anyway. This lunacy is explainable though: every nurse in the OB clinic not only had all of their children with the midwife, but the midwife delivered every nurse in the OB clinic at our hospital. Apparently this woman has been delivering babies since Adam, and has delivered literally thousands of children. Good. Great. Wonderful. My wife and I still want a doctor to deliver our child, and since it is our decision, you would think that the nurses would be able to respect that.

Two nights ago though, when we went in thinking we were in labor (30-45 second contractions 15 minutes apart) who did they call? The midwife, of course; the midwife, who kept us there for two hours to see if my wife's contractions would get any stronger or closer together. After two hours, at the midwife's request, the nurse finally called the on-call doctor. The doctor said, "Check the Cervix, not opening = no labor." Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, we were in the car driving home. What is so infuriating about this situation is that if the pushy nurses at our hospital could have listened to our requests, we would not have been in the hospital for two hours, and I may have gotten some sleep before my 11 hour shift the next day. I know that sounds selfish next to my poor wife's plight of pregnancy, but sleep is important for those of us who are working (My wife is not working at the present, she is student teaching in the spring and is currently on winter break from school). I just don't understand why the wishes of the patient cannot be considered by the nurses, doctor's have to swear that they will do stuff like that. Some Hippocratic something-or-other... I guess that's the big difference between doctors and nurses, that and, you know, the whole "Medical School" thing.

*disclaimer* I'm sure that somewhere there are nurses who are concerned about their patients desires and do what they can to meet both their needs and wants, and who are rightly offended by this rant. This post, however, is not directed at all nurses, only the ones who are too thick to understand, "Don't call the midwife, call the doctor."