The 10 things I've learned from OB

1.  Research is important. If I didn't know better, I would totally think C-sections are better for the mom's body than vaginal delivery. So much stress.
2. Watching a woman give birth and watching the high jump are similar in that I have sympathy actions. Time for the athlete to have a strong knee drive? My knee instinctively raises. Time for mom to bear down? My abdominal muscles clench.
3. After searching for and listening to fetal heart sounds all day, I start to imagine them everywhere: the ventilation ducts, the static on the TV, general background noise.
4. Women are really different. Some women strain for a bowel movement and end up having a child - others work for hours to get the job done.
5. My husband probably won't be allowed in the labor and delivery room. He'll either be too freaked out and faint, or will make a basketball joke. I imagine this going something like, "One possession at a time, just gotta be really good one contraction at a time."
6. I thought because I ran track in college, I had at least seen hard work before. Nothing is as hard as pushing a living thing out of a space that is too small for it to fit through. Sometimes even when you have an epidural.
7. You know it's a good push when you can see hemorrhoids.
8. I may never stop tearing up when putting the baby on mom's belly for the first time.
9. Most shoulder dystocias occur in the absence of risk factors, so they can't really be predicted. If there is shoulder dystocia, there will be "turtle's sign": the baby's head comes out, and then wants to go back in again. In order to deliver the shoulders, there are several things that can help: putting mom on all fours (Gaskin manuever), pulling her knees up to her chest (McRoberts maneuver), suprapubic pressure, and delivering the posterior arm by reaching up and pulling the forearm out, among other things that we didn't talk about/do.
10. There are as many positions for pushing things out as there are for getting things in.