Life Keeps on Moving, Anyway

I will never forget my first night on the unit as a labor & delivery nurse. 

I will be honest, I was terrified. It wasn’t a job I took because I wanted it; it was a job I took because I needed a job. Even though I had been a nurse for almost three years, I didn’t know much about labor and delivery. I knew enough to be scared. I knew that it was a high risk area and that things could go so very wrong in the blink of an eye. I didn’t like losing an element of control…there’s only so much you can do to try and fix a baby while it is still inside its momma. I would have felt much more comfortable back in the NICU where I could actually touch the baby!

Fear and apprehension aside, a small part of me was excited to learn something new. I was curious as to what my new role would look like.

I had seen deliveries a few times before. As a nursing student I got to see a few, and then on a few occasions as a nursery nurse I got called to labor & delivery to assist with the baby immediately after birth. But none of that resembled anything close to my experience my first day on L&D.

It was a night shift in late March, and my work started at 6 pm. The patient I assumed care of had been admitted earlier in the day after her water broke. She had been laboring for several hours, and decided to get an epidural shortly after I got on shift. The amount of support I needed to provide to my patient during labor was minimal after that…we allowed her to rest and my preceptor began teaching me things I would need to know. Around 10 pm, my preceptor and I went to do a cervical exam to see how much progress our patient had made. She was dilated to 10 cm (which we term “complete,” meaning the cervix has completely dilated to allow the baby to pass through the birth canal). After the exam, I felt my adrenals kicking in. This woman would be having her baby soon. And I was going to get to be a part of the whole thing.

When it was time to start pushing, I stood on one side of the patient’s bed as her husband stood on the other. Together, we supported my patient’s legs as my preceptor coached her through pushing. I offered words of encouragement and support as we continued, and soon became overwhelmed with gratitude and humility for the opportunity to participate in such an event. The moment this child would be born would be a moment that would forever change the course of the future. As I watched this momma give everything she had to bring this child into the world, I choked up a little on the inside. There I stood, in the same position as many women throughout the history of the world, as they assisted other women in their villages and communities with childbirth. For thousands of years they had done exactly as I was doing on that night, and I felt the strength, unity and power that comes with that kind of sisterhood. The gravity of that moment was not lost on me.

A year later, I am still a little in awe that I get to be a part of this every week as my job. I get paid to help women have babies. I get to help coach them through labor, answer their questions, and eventually assist in bringing their baby into this world. I get to help them feed their baby and answer their questions about their baby’s health. I get to teach them about all of the changes that their body is going through and what to expect in the postpartum period. I get to be an advocate, encourager and friend. This is my job. And I couldn’t be more grateful for it, even on the hard days.

I find great joy in helping a woman through her labor or c-section, and helping her and her partner fully experience (as far as they wish it) this process at a time that is so uniquely theirs. It is a job that is all about encouragement.

Of course, it isn’t always easy. Despite all of the advances that we have in modern medicine, there is a significant level of “uncontrollable-ness” in regards to conception, pregnancy, and delivery. Not everyone gets to have a baby when they want to, and not everyone gets to have a baby. Not everyone has a healthy pregnancy and delivery, and not everyone gets a healthy baby.

Those are the tougher moments of my job…knowing what to say and what not to say as a mother comes in to deliver a baby that has passed while still in her womb. Knowing how to comfort a father as his wife is whisked away for an emergency c-section in which the outcome for both wife and child is unknown. Knowing how to tell new parents “your baby is struggling a little bit” as the baby is transferred to intensive care. Knowing how to be there for your patient and continue the necessary care after the physician delivers a terrifying diagnosis or any kind of bad news.

This is what I signed up for.

The good and the bad.

And to be a good nurse through all of it. To not have my emotions compromise what needs to be done.

As a nurse I juggle between mourning with those that mourn, comforting those who stand in need of comfort - and then again find joy and excitement in the next moment to celebrate with those who are in a season of joy. It is sometimes particularly difficult for me to change composure like that only in the time it takes to walk from one room to the next. I never know what I'm going to walk into when I go to work, and it would be easier to just turn all the emotion off. But I'm still human, and how can I not feel joy at the birth of a baby or feel sorrow during some sort of loss? Being a "professional" in these instances doesn't make me immune to those traits that come with being a living soul. Nursing for me stands at the precipice of human emotion, and it is the pinnacle of my humanity.

If anything, working in labor & delivery has taught me that life keeps on moving anyway, no matter the struggle. A minute, an hour may feel like eternity – but it always passes. And even when it feels like you can’t take it any longer, I promise you that you can. Just one more minute. You can do anything for 60 seconds. And even if you have to take it one minute at a time, that minute will eventually pass. You were born to handle this, and you are stronger and more capable than you know. Keep pushing forward, don’t give up, and life will keep on moving.