Not always fun

Every birth is a miracle. Every baby a blessing. But not every birth is fun for the midwife. A lot of mothers that have had a few babies like to do things their own way, which is great. Most of the time. It does make it difficult to do your job as a midwife however. For example: "Here is some water." "no thank you mam." "You have not had any since last night." "no thank you mam". "Why don't you go try to void" "Later mam" "you have not voided, in 4+ hrs, it can prevent the baby's head from coming down." "later mam". And on and on it goes.

This particular mother's last baby had a really fast pushing stage. She expected that to happen with this one and it didn't. You can't reason with a laboring woman very well and sometimes your attempts to help get a "just leave". These are the times you have to love, support,  pray and not take it personal.

The baby did come, in only about 20 minutes once the mom got down to pushing. She did a great job, even if she wouldn't do a thing we said, thankfully there was no major reason for her to need to listen to us (through it would have made it better for her). Her husband was fabulous and did whatever she wished. I again had the pleasure of seeing a squirmy baby boy meet his momma for the very first time. I love that part of my job, always :)