Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
18
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“She Can’t Possibly Be Pushing…”
“She can’t possibly be pushing, we just checked her and she was 5 cm.” -L&D nurse to partner, after he called frantically for the nurse on the call bell. Baby was born 15 minutes after vaginal exam indicated mom was 5 cm.
There are 16 comments to this post.
With my second I went from 6cm to transition in 15 minutes. Maybe 5ish minutes later my daughter was born. My husband almost missed it because he was out in the car getting the birth plan that I forgot! HA! OB never even came close to having the time to get into the room.
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This was basically my scenario too, except change 5cm to 7cm, and add in a nurse threatening me that if I didn’t sign the Absolute Consent To Everything form, she legally was not able to help me deliver my baby in the hospital’s maternity unit with the midwives I’d been seeing all through my pregnancy. Yah.
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Sheva Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 5:28 am (Quote)
That sounds so silly, but to a laboring woman it’s so scary!
I have a sister who’s an RN, and I watched her go through nursing school, and so much stress was put on bedside manner and advocating for the patient.
I’m wondering, do RNs get into trouble from the docs or the hospital if they don’t get the patients to sign certain forms or follow each doc’s arbitrary orders?
These stories sometimes sound like self-preservation, and I can’t think of any other reason for the stories that are coming in here!
(My friend would say, “It’s a reason, but not an excuse.”)
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Jane Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 6:01 am (Quote)
I signed with my first name only and I don’t think the nurse got a chance to put the form anywhere before my water broke all over her and the baby was out about three minutes later.
I complained to the head of the maternity unit, and she apologized & explained that they do put a lot of pressure on the nurses to get those forms signed, “But sometimes they go overboard.” Yeah, making me sign during the middle of a contraction when I was totally focused, or during the 30 seconds between them during which I was also totally focused, by threatening me with lawyers, that was overboard.
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Jess Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 6:18 am (Quote)
Yeah, the labor and delivery nurses were trying to get me to sign the paperwork during transition. and they were trying to get my husband to fill it out when i realized i was starting to push…it made it way more chaotic than it should have been. sigh.
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CLT Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 10:15 am (Quote)
Nothing you sign while having a contraction should be legally binding anyway. Talk about being under duress. (You shouldn’t have to be having discussions about episiotomies, either, but that’s what I had to do).
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Jane Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 2:37 pm (Quote)
I considered signing it with “**** you” or someone else’s name. There’s no way I could have read that document. But she wanted it signed and was yelling at me. I was on hands-and-knees, breathing deep and focusing,a nd she pushed the paper onto the pillow beneath my face and siad, “You have to sign this or LEGALLY I am not allowed to help you at all!” The 9384th lie I’ve ever been told by someone in the birthing industry.
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spingirl Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 9:05 am (Quote)
For my hospital birth (for which I showed up pushing), I didn’t sign the consents until after my son was born, lol…the nurse who was going over the consents with me actually laughed about that.
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atyourcervix Reply:
January 20th, 2010 at 7:44 am (Quote)
Some nurses get into their “routine” of how things are done for an admission. They have a hard time thinking outside of the box.
There have been several times where I have been that nurse who has the mom sign her consents after the precipitous birth of her baby. And yes, I giggle when I say, “oh, and here is the consent for vaginal delivery.” ::grin::
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I had my baby 3 weeks ago – and had the exact same thing happen. I told the nurse I felt like I had to push – so she checked me and told me that I was only at 5cm and told me that I needed to lay down and be put back on the monitors (which was extremely painful to labor on my back). So I promptly stood up – for the next 10 minutes w/ the belts (much to my nurses dismay). Next thing I know, I’m being “encouraged” to lay back down, oxygen mask thrown on, rolled over to my left side, and pushing as hard as I can b/c my daughter’s heartrate was decelerating with every contraction (1 minute apart). Well, my one gloved nurse & 2 other nurses quickly delivered my daughter (who took her pretty time to start breathing & crying) well before any Doctor showed up and 15 minutes after telling me “Oh, you’re still at 5 cm).
p.s. During those scary minutes while the nurses were working on my daughter to get her to breath, I had a wonderful nurse who put herself right over my head (since I couldn’t move). She looked me right in the eyes and was telling me exactly what was going on the whole time with my girl. I’ll never forget how she kept me informed and calm during those long minutes.
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jennifer Reply:
January 19th, 2010 at 8:25 am (Quote)
i wish i had a nurse who did that for me, our daughter was not breathing when she was born, the OBGYN was stitching me up while my doc and nurses were trying to get her to start breathing. Noone was telling me anything, my mom and husband were holding hands on the couch b/c my mom was almost having a panic attack, and my best friend was holding my hand. 3 days in the nursery running tests they determined she was born holding her breath.
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Knitted in the Womb had this to say,
Jan 19, 2010 @ 7:35 am (Quote)
This ranks right up there with the OB who was shocked that one of my clients was pushing, after she’d quite obviously been pushing right in front of him for 10 minutes–poo on the bed & all. But I guess since she wasn’t laying on her back with people counting at her (she was kneeling on the bed, OB was standing at the other end of the room being P.O.ed about another situation), she couldn’t possibly have been pushing, so we were all hallucinating the baby head between her legs.
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This happened to my mother during the birth of my older brother. She arrived in active labor (This was 38 years ago) and was promptly put in a hospital bed to be prepped for an enema and a shave. At first check they said she wasn’t quite halfway dilated. Not even ten minutes later she told the nurse that he was coming and the nurse kept saying, “He can’t be coming, you just got here and you aren’t all the way there yet. We HAVE to get you shaved first!”
My aunt was with her and looked under my mother’s dress (She hadn’t even gotten a gown yet) and said, “Can you shave around the baby’s head? If not you might wanna put down that razor!”
My brother was born a minute later with a very shocked and panicked nurse catching him.
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uggg this aggravates me soooo much! We have ALL heard of moms delivering moments after being checked. Why do Doctors continue to act as if they know everything!!!!!
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