Day 26:

Today was an awesome day, and definitely made up for the lack of business in ICU! I was on the OB unit, and it was CRAZY!! The kid who crashed my internship got kicked off the unit because the women didn’t want him observing, so I had the whole day to myself without anyone tagging along! At first I felt a little out of place because the unit didn’t seem prepared to have interns/observers at all. The doctors were preoccupied with all the patients, and told me repeatedly they were sorry they didn’t have time to explain anything. So instead, I just wandered around the ward talking to the patients. I eventually ended up rocking this adorable two-day-old baby girl to sleep while talking to her mom and grandma. They were so nice! And they actually let me participate in this little traditional ceremony (or rather, told me that I was going to do this without any choice). There was a little bit of a language barrier, but apparently it’s customary to let newborns suck on sugar water (off your finger) so that they’ll like you, and I guess I was the first to do this for the baby! A pretty big honor, if you ask me! They also told me that I needed to give them baby name ideas by tomorrow, so if anyone has any let me know! Ha

After all the baby cuteness, I decided to try and watch some procedures, and ended up getting to watch the anesthesiologist place several epidurals. It’s done almost exactly the same in India and the US, but still cool to see!

And finally, the highlight of the day, I got to watch a baby being born! I was literally standing right next to the mom and got to watch everything, something that would never happen in the states! C-sections are neat, but natural births are even better! Sure makes you appreciate life, although after seeing all that pain (and an episiotomy), watching a birth would make anyone not want to ever have kids. It’s probably good most patients don’t actually know what goes on during procedures (like during the eye surgery or a birth) because guaranteed nobody would ever follow through!! I have to say though, births in India are a very lonely affair. From what I observed, once moms receive epidurals (or are far enough along) they’re transferred out of the main ward into a delivery room. However, they are there all alone. This particular mom labored by herself for at least an hour or hour and a half while the nurses just did their work all around her. And even when it came time to actually give birth, it was just the doctors and nurses. No mom, no husband, no relatives. That’s actually true for the main ward as well. Most of the women had a female relative with them, but there just isn’t room for entire families to visit. Another thing is that the OB ward is almost entirely female-dominated (as in, all the doctors and nurses are women), which is a nice change from the very male-dominated wards in the rest of the hospital, and which could be why most of the husbands weren’t even present.

Such an adorable baby!

Proud grandma

Happy momma