I’m writing this from a hospital labor and delivery room.
I’m watching my newborn son and wife sleep peacefully right in front of me. I am very tired, as we’ve been here since yesterday morning, and we had nurses in and out all night checking on my wife’s status and the status of the fetus.
My wife had to go in for an emergency C-section at about 7 ET this morning. We had planned for and hoped for a vaginal delivery, but it didn’t work out that way.
The delivery doctor rushed in around 6:45, donned her scrubs in about 15 seconds, then crammed her gloved hand into my wife’s vagina and started feeling around. By this point, my wife is lying in the bed with the stirrups, legs spread, I’m holding her left leg with my left arm and her left hand with my right hand.
The doctor instructs her to push three or four times. Then I can tell by the doctor’s face something isn’t quite right. She tells my wife to push again. My wife pushes, the doctor shakes her head.
“I’m gonna have to section you.” Then, to the nurses in the room, “calll Dr. White and get me a STAT C in the OR.”
I can see my wife wilt. She begins to sob.
The doctor tells her it will be fine, then explains that the baby’s head is positioned incorrectly. Every time my wife…
