Clinical

Hello all! I am lucky enough to have my senior clinical at a Birthing Center this semester. I'm getting experience with a little bit of everything - postpartum, antepartum, NICU, perinatal clinic, and of course, labor and delivery. I am absolutely loving it. After three hospital clinicals involving all things not baby related, it is refreshing to finally be working in the area that made me apply to nursing school in the first place. So far I've spent three weeks in postpartum, which is tons of fun. I have been doing assessments on women and their newborns, providing patient education, and discharging parents home with their new babes. Last week, another person in my clinical group was sick, so I went in her place to labor and delivery. I got to see my first ever hospital birth! Here is what I thought:

My overall impression of hospital birth was that I loved it just as much as the births I attended in Guatemala – absolutely amazing. It was similar to the births I saw in the way that it was natural, without an epidural. The sense of joy and accomplishment in the room immediately after birth was the same, if not more powerful (because so many people were in the room). The way the new mother looked at her baby and the feeling that what she just did was the hardest and best thing at the same time was another similarity. There were obvious differences, like the hospital bed and all of the supplies that come with any hospital birth, calling the NICU team when meconium was discovered in the amniotic fluid, and the injection and eye ointment for the baby soon after birth. My dreams of becoming a midwife were solidified even further as I felt the incredible energy in the room during the whole labor and the birth of a new human being! Before seeing this birth, I felt very “against” hospital births in comparison to natural home births, but I realized that birth can be just as joyous and beautiful in a hospital if a woman chooses to deliver there. Don't get me wrong, I'm still totally going to have a home birth if the conditions are right, but I think hospital births can be great if she has a provider who is willing to work with her and is a strong self-advocate. It will be interesting for me to see my first birth with an epidural or elective cesarean section, and I am eager to reflect on those experiences in the near future. 

San Marcos, Pizza Night, Hot Springs, Antigua

Here are the last of my pictures from my life changing experience in Guatemala.

last arroz con leche...

Final Pictures

Corpus Christi in Tecpan

Last baby I saw be born - Dilma's baby

Lupita was wearing an Inca Kola shirt from Peru!

Driving around

Atol de arroz con leche - Alex and I

Hayley's first atol!