Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
29
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Whoa! I’ve Never Seen That Before.”
Whoa! I’ve never seen that before.” – All staff in attendance at a birth while the baby was crowning.
There are 24 comments to this post.
Had this been my birth, I would have been wondering “what’s wrong with my baby?” If they’re just in awe of a natural or vaginal birth, they need to STFU. If they are, in fact, looking at something unusual about the baby or about Mom’s body, they still need to STFU about whether they’ve seen it before. If they need to exchange actual information to actually do their jobs, they should do so, as respectfully of the mother’s potential worry as possible. But this comment is unnecessary.
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This would seriously make me think something was wrong.
After my 5th birth, the attendant said to me afterward, “I’d never seen anything like that before. He emerged all in one push like someone putting on a turtleneck sweater, so everything just opened up before him.” And that’s a fine time to point out any unique aspects of the birth — after it’s done. But if she’d said that *during* the birth I’d have been terrified something was wrong or that the presenting part wasn’t the head, or something worse.
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Every birth attendant? My guess is they saw a nose.
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Amanda Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 7:43 am (Quote)
or a hand. With my last birth the midwife exclaimed in a very excited way “Ooh. A hand.” I had to stop pushing and laugh. In fact she had never seen a nuchal hand before but the words she used were to the point and not worrisome unlike the quote above.
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Was the baby born in caul? That’s really cool to see and pretty rare. But still inappropriate time to point that out
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I just recently had my baby girl. She was coming out sunny side up, (Which we suspected as I had horrible back labour.) but while she was crowning she did a 180 spin and came out the “normal” (face down) way.
Apparently it was really cool to see, but it did cause me a bit of anxiety. I was like “What?! What!?” I was wondering if my baby was an alien or had horns or something. My doula was nice enough to not be among the commenters and just told me “Don’t worry, everything is normal.” But everyone else was commenting on it.
It’s funny now, but seriously having like 5 people stare at your vagina and say “Whoa! I’ve never seen that before!” Is never a good feeling…. LOL.
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mommymichael Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 10:16 am (Quote)
Wow!! That must have been the coolest thing ever to see! I can certainly imagine the anxiety it caused, but I’m glad you can look back now and think it’s funny.
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Katie Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 10:36 am (Quote)
That’s so cool! Even though in the moment, the wording wasn’t quite right, I can imagine that I would be putting my foot in my mouth if I saw something like that. However, I’m not medical staff, so they should have figured out a better way to say it.
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atyourcervix Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 10:42 am (Quote)
congratulations on your birth! I also had a baby who did this at the time of birth. I’ve witnessed it several times as the nurse — always amazing to see just how smart these babies are!
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Kim Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 11:00 am (Quote)
That is pretty cool! My 3rd was born with a nuchal hand and in an attempt to make a joke about it (wasn’t offensive, just a cheesy one), my OBGYN said “Wait a minute, is one supposed to be a boy or a girl?” My focus was totally shot. “What?! I thought it was a girl? We had 3 ultrasounds, is it not a girl? Whats going on?!?!?”
Dr. responded, “no, no, nothing like that! I just forgot”
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I’m sorry, but my first reply to this would have been “GET OUT!” I really didn’t want my birth to be a spectator sport, and specifically told the nurses to eliminate ALL unnecessary staff members from my room at all times. So ton of staff members crowding around me so they could gape at my vagina while I pushed out my son would have just been awful.
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Felicia Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 1:34 pm (Quote)
I get what you’re saying however, for me there wasn’t any unnecessary staff. I pushed her out in like maybe 5 mins. 3 pushes and she was out, so the staff was still prepping the room and the Dr almost didn’t make it there. (The nurse also tried to do the whole “Don’t push, the Dr isn’t here yet.”) I didn’t really have time to tell anyone off about it. And 2 of the people were my support people.
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Kristin Reply:
January 29th, 2013 at 8:38 pm (Quote)
I pushed for nearly two hours, and the staff changed shifts just as I started. It was a bit awkward… Maybe next time I’ll have a short pushing phase like you! That would be awesome!
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Julie Reply:
February 2nd, 2013 at 2:36 am (Quote)
Pushing with my first: 3 hours.
Pushing my second: 25 minutes. Actually, technically my whole labour was shorter that 3 hours 
What was funny though is that with my second, pushing was by far the most painful part. I didn’t even “push” as in bare down, my body just shot her out while I held on for dear life, lol. I always wonder if the fact that she was born in her sac affected how painful it was…
Anyways, There IS hope for a much shorter pushing phase.
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Add Your Comment.
Sad. Have they never seen a birth happen without the use of knives and/or scissors?
Otherwise it sounds to me like she was giving birth in the wrong part of the hospital.
Looking forward to the story behind the quote.
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