Two stories and One baked good ;)

I work on a maternity unit as a nurse, and I haven't shared much about what I do (besides the obvious 'cuddling' with little babies every so often)......WELL, here ya go! And just for the record: You'll soon see why I don't share many 'maternity' stories here. Avert your eyes from the second story if the word 'placenta' is something you don't want to see here again ;)

Alright, First story:

I recently heard a couple of nurses talking about an 'FLK' baby.....I had NO idea what this meant, but later learned that it's short for 'Funny Looking Kid.' Apparently doctor's used to chart 'FLK' if a baby's appearance was....well, funny. It meant that there could be some undiagnosed chormosomal disorder brewing (yada yada).

Anyhow! I remember walking into the staff room talking about one of the baby's on the unit (that I thought was really cute), and the other nurses sat there stunned at what I was saying. I mean, the baby's wee little head WAS a little crooked.....but he had this full head of hair that was spiked into a cute little mohawk :) It was adorable. But nonetheless, also 'funny looking' apparently.....and for the record: I was the only nurse who thought the baby was cute :)

And the Second Story:

Just the other day I saw a patient of mine deliver a BEAUTIFUL baby girl. And usually (within about 5-10 minutes of the infant's delivery) the placenta is also delivered. WELL, 5 minutes went past and the placenta still did not show.....and then 10 minutes past.....and then 25 minutes......and when we hit the 30 minute mark, the doctor decided to alert the on-call obstetrician.

Needless to say, the obstetrician arrives and gives the patient two choices: A) We can go down to the operating room, give you a sniff of anesthetic and deliver the placenta down there, or B) We can get the placenta out right now.....

Well, the patient chose the second option (WRONG CHOICE!).....at which time the obstetrician told me to give 75 mcg of fentanyl (which did nothing for the patient's pain). The obstetrician then donned gloves and proceeded to MANUALLY extract the placenta from the woman's uterus. I know it's been done lots before, but I've never SEEN it done......and if you're picturing a doctor reaching into a woman's uterus and pulling out a placenta....you've got the picture just about right. But include a LOT more discomfort on the patient's part and well, quite a bit more (uh) blood....and yep....there you go! That's what I witnessed ;) I had to try and keep the woman still......kept telling her to take nice deep long breaths and such......it was horrifying and exciting all at the same time.......

Suprisingly, I still like my job! I have far more stories than just the above, but maternity stories don't really make good tabletalk tidbits (or blog posts for that matter). And in the end, my job includes a lots of 'nasty', but also a lot of cute 'FLK' babies ;)

And because I don't want to end a post with a nasty story, here's some pictures I took at Granville Island with my photography class this past week. I kept walking past these baked goods and drooling......so I bought one at the end of the class and literally inhaled the thing in my car. It was this baked blueberry tart thing with white chocolate inside and powdered sugar on top. I'm salivating just thinking about it right now :)