Catching Babies by J.D. Kleinke

Author:J.D. Kleinke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fourth Chapter Books
Published: 2011-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

The Call Gods did throw that fit, a few minutes after 8 P.M., just as Dr. Jay Schwartz was placing a large pile of completed paperwork on Betty’s chair in the front office.

On the quiet, wood-paneled labor deck in Community Hospital, Jane Richter was climbing into a delivery bed. Her labor had not progressed past the first stage, but she was demanding that she see the on-call doctor. She was full term and enormous, it was her first pregnancy, she was 39 years old, and she had a narrow pelvis, which would make for a painful and potentially difficult delivery.

“You’re not my regular OB,” Jane snapped as Jay introduced himself and picked up her chart.

“No,” Jay said. He was going to pat her on the shoulder the way he usually did, but then he thought better of it. “I’m Jay Schwartz, one of Dr. Harford’s partners. I’m the physician on call tonight from the practice.”

“Well, that’s just great,” she muttered. “I was hoping—” and then her face buckled with a contraction. Jay studied the angry contortions of her face, looked down at her chart, then back at her face. “Shit!” she yelled as the contraction passed.

“Do you mind if I check your progress?” Jay asked, nodding toward her abdomen and pulling on gloves.

“Why should I mind? Everybody else in this place has had their hands in me.”

Jay checked her cervix, which had not dilated much after eight hours of what looked like hard labor, and knew she was in for a long night. He stood up, looked at the fetal heart rate monitor, then picked up her chart.

“Looks like from Dr. Harford’s notes you don’t want any medications for pain. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“You also don’t want any medications to induce labor—unless it’s absolutely necessary. Right?”

“Yes,” she said. “All natural. I want to do this—” another contraction, and her face twisted with the pain. “Goddamn it!” she howled as it passed, gasping for air. “I want to do this naturally. We have a birth plan. It should be in there somewhere.”

Jay leafed through the chart and found a handful of colorful pages, custom-printed from some website, with a long series of instructions for how she wanted her delivery to proceed: no oxytocin or other hormones to speed up labor; no epidural for the pain; no forceps or vacuum extraction unless absolutely necessary; no C-section except in the case of a serious emergency.

“Sorry, I’m late,” a man’s voice interrupted.

Jay looked up and saw a wiry, balding man in his mid-forties hurry in, dressed in a dark blue suit, a cell phone device stuck in one ear.

“Who are you?” he asked Jay, moving to the head of Jane’s bed.

Jay noticed that he did not hug, kiss, or even touch her.

“This is my husband, Bill,” Jane said to Jay.

“Jay Schwartz,” Jay said, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m covering Dr. Harford’s patients tonight.”

“Great,” he snorted, giving Jay a cursory handshake. “Just what we need. The B-Team.”

Jay ignored him and went back to the birth plan.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.