End Notes
The Delivery
By Christie Gove Berg, M.D.
Nothing is like holding a newborn’s head in your hands. A head that has pushed its way through the birth canal and is outside for the first time, feeling the cold air and knowing that Things Have Changed. It is quiet and still when it is just a head. The eyes are closed, and it is waiting to be released from the vise grip of the birth canal. It is waiting to take a deep breath and make those miraculous changes that occur during this miraculous time.
But right now, It is waiting.
Wet and slick and blue, and waiting. For me.
I pull gently, but it does not come. Mom is grunting, the video camera is rolling, and everyone is watching this little head in my hands. I pull harder, down and away from Mom. Waiting for the shoulder to come, hoping for the shoulder to come. I ask Mom to keep pushing. Don’t stop now. You have to keep pushing. Help me get your baby out. The video is rolling, and time is slowing down.
The head is not soft, as many people imagine, but firm in my hands. I don’t think of it as a head. It is a handle, a place to grab hold so that I can get that body out.
I am warm in my gown and gloves and mask, with a hot bright light shining on Mom’s exhausted bottom from over my shoulder. I am pulling hard now. The nurse pushes just above the pelvic bone to try to get that shoulder moving. The video is rolling, and I hear Grandma talking on her cell phone in the corner of the room. It’s almost out. Yes, she did a great job. Oh, I’ll call you back.
Keep pushing, I say again. You have to push. I need your help.
Her legs have been pulled far back and opened wide, the nurse still leans onto her abdomen. It feels like minutes, days, weeks, but it has been seconds. I am sweating a bit. Now I am trying to dip my fingers in around the edges of this head, to pull out an arm, to twist this baby that is caught half in and half out of this world.
Its handle head is still blue; I place my hands around it again, pull harder, and then feel the subtle give of the shoulder bone coming under Mom’s pubic bone, and I have the chest, then the stomach, then the bottom, and then just the cord. Baby goes up on Mom’s chest, and she leans back and relaxes, eyes closed. There is laughter and then wailing, and we all smile.
And the video is still rolling. MM
Christie Gove Berg is a family physician at Fairview Lakes Rush City Area Clinic. This article received honorable mention in Minnesota Medicine’s 2009 Medical Musings writing contest.