Big Girl
“There is absolutely nothing feminine about
me!”
I hurl it like an accusation at my mother
who sits across from me placidly folding laundry.
“I’m a big girl,” I say, in despair. “I’m so tall, and I’ve got bigger hands and feet
than any other girl I know.”
My mother looks at me like she doesn’t
quite know what to say. Unusual for her,
especially since I am her third teenage daughter and nothing much rattles her at
this point. She nods. She knows what I mean. We live in Korea, and next to the Korean
girls my age, I do indeed look gigantic.
My mother puts down the laundry, takes my
hand, and examines it thoughtfully.
“They look like strong, capable hands to
me, Phebe,” she says.
I roll my eyes. Small comfort at sixteen.
*****
My patient is only sixteen. She looks small and scared in the big
delivery bed. I try my best to appear
calm and confident, but the truth is that I am a very new labor nurse and not
much older than she is.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, but
inside I am praying dear God, please help
us both come out of this alive.
When she is in so much pain that neither
of us knows what to do anymore, she decides to get an epidural. I hold her steady while the anesthesiologist
inserts the long needle, and she leans on me and sobs and sweats into my scrub
top. I brace my legs and hold her with
all my strength. I stroke her head and
talk softly to her, like she’s my baby sister.
And she makes it through. We both
do. I am as surprised and excited as she
is when a beautiful baby girl is born screaming and very much alive. We are all alive, and life is good.
Later the young mama brings me some
flowers at the nurse’s station.
“These are for you. Thank you for getting me through the pain.”
The card on the flowers says “congratulations
on your baby girl”. She gave me what she
had.
I give her a hug and it hurts because my
arms still ache from holding her. It’s
then that I decide I love being a labor nurse.
*****
“How can you do that?” my patient asks,
tears streaming down her face.
I look down at the preterm baby cradled in
the palm of my big hand. The baby is perfect, but too tiny to live. Her skin is translucent, and she lies
motionless except for the occasional gasp.
This is not the first time I’ve met death
on the labor ward. I’ve been a labor
nurse for a few years now. People often tell
me that I have a happy job. They forget
that sometimes babies die and mamas have their hearts wrenched out right before
my eyes.
And what can I possibly do about it?
Be there.
That is all. Be there with my
hands and my heart and my physical presence.
Be with the mama through her pain.
I dress the baby carefully, and the
grieving mama holds her, and I hold them both.
The mama clings to my hand, and I don’t mind that she sees the tears on
my cheeks. I lost a baby too once, and I
know a little of her pain.
*****
A baby’s heart rate drops suddenly. An emergency cesarean section is called and
we are all running. Somehow before I
know it, I am about to assist the doctor because there is no one else to do the
job. I scrub quickly in the sink outside
the operating room and walk in with my sterile hands held carefully in front of
me.
“What size gloves, Phebe?” the circulating
nurse asks me.
“Eight.”
“Dang, girl! Even the doc’s hands aren’t that big!”
I blush, but don’t have time to think
about it. Before I know it, those size
eight hands are holding retractors, pulling apart muscle, sopping up blood…and
bulb suctioning a nine pound screaming baby boy.
*****
Another labor, another mama. She’s progressing slowly. I examine her and find a head wedged forward,
with too much room behind. A slight
concave under her navel and severe back pain mean that the baby is probably turned
face up instead of face down. Together
we work through positions to turn the baby—hands and knees, modified
lunges. She is getting tired. She settles on a birth ball, leaning forward
into the bed, while I press my fist into her lower back to relieve the
pain. My arms ache as I lean over her
and push her hip bones together again and again as she moans through
contractions.
And now she’s crouching in the bed, the top
of a curly black head bulging through her stretching vagina as she bears
down. Suddenly she arches back and
screams.
“I can’t!
I can’t!”
I cup my hands around her face.
“You can.
You will. You are.”
She’s at that moment. We all get there at some point.
I put my hands on her shoulders and speak
calm and low.
“Mama, look at me. Look at my eyes. Breathe with me. You are a strong, beautiful mama. You can do it. Push.”
And somehow she summons the strength, and
the baby is born in a gush of amniotic fluid and blood. She sinks back, crying, sweating, shaking,
and I place the screaming infant on her naked chest.
She looks up at me, triumph in her
eyes. The warrior returned from battle,
victorious.
“I did it,” she says.
*****
Later the new mama calls me to come help
her get up to the bathroom.
“If you start to fall, fall on me,” I say,
gently helping her to her feet. “I’m a
big girl. I’ll catch you.”
She smiles. A trail of blood runs down her leg and she
looks at me, concerned.
“No worries. We’ll get you cleaned up as soon as we make
it to the bathroom.”
I walk behind her, one leg placed
strategically to catch her if she falls.
I help her settle onto the toilet, and begin explaining about how to
take care of herself and prevent infection after birth. She looks at me, her face sweaty and
exhausted, and I realize she needs a minute.
Satisfied that she isn’t going to faint, I start the shower and get some
towels. While she showers, I clean up
the room—mop blood off the floor, change soaked linens. It’s a messy business, having a baby. A few minutes later, I help the new mama back
into a fresh bed, give her some Motrin, instruct her to drink up the juice I
give her, and leave her breastfeeding her pink newborn.
I rinse the delivery instruments and start
the first disinfectant soak. Then I pour
another cup of coffee and sink into my chair at the nurse’s station.
Aching arms.
Size eight hands.
Hundreds of mamas. Hundreds of times.
“I’m a big girl. I’ll catch you."
