I am employed at a Childbirth Center and recently while I was at work, one of the nurses asked me to take a baby out to her mama. While I was wheeling the baby I was watching her and said "She doesn't look like she's breathing right…" The nurse assured me she was okay, that she transitioned well and that her mom had morphine about an hour prior to delivery — simply the after-effects. I said "still…."
"She's fine — please take her out, she needs to eat…"
So I did.
The mother, who was Mexican and spoke no English, was still feeling the effects of the morphine and so I gave the grandmother the baby, the bottle, and retreated to the nurses' station. Company soon arrived to see baby and mama and thankfully, there was a sister-in-law who spoke English pretty well — she was 8½ months pregnant herself so we talked about when she would be in to see us; small talk.
A short while later, the call bell for that room rang. I answered and said "I'll be right there," remembering they spoke no English and I wanted to see what was needed first-hand. I walked into the room where all the relatives were surrounding the baby who was laying on the bed next to the still-medicated mama, and turned off the call light.
"What's going on? Everything okay?" I asked. The pregnant relative said "Miss, the baby doesn't look right…" I immediately went over to the baby, who was ashen and said "what's happened?" She said she was feeding her and the baby went limp. I lifted the baby, who was now bluish, held her to my chest and said "Ok, thanks — I've got to get her to her nurse…." Panic-stricken, I began patting her on the back with one hand to stimulate her, grabbing her crib with the other, and left the room as calmly as possible. When I was in the hall, I began to run and said "this baby is BLUE!!" The nurses all sprung to action, stimulated her more and her color started to return, but her little heart rate kept dropping so they called NICU. Once revived to the point of "pink," and our heart rates returned to normal, the nurse was told to observe her for an hour and let them know how she fared.
She ended up going to the NICU because her heart rate kept dropping and her breathing was slowing; it seems morphine and newborns don't necessarily mix and she spent time there for a bit prior to being discharged. The nurses were happy I was so quick to answer the call bell but I was just doing my job, ma'am. They were also teasing me because our Administration has been giving out "WaWa gift cards" for employees who go above and beyond and they were saying I deserved at least two for being at the right place at the right time.
Recently, I took care of another Mexican mom who spoke English well. She was having spinal headaches because of the epidural she received during labor. She had on her wrist three saints' bracelets made of cherry wood that had laminated pictures of the saints or Jesus on the front of each little piece of wood. I commented that I see so many Hispanic women wearing them that come in, but never any white women and said "I don't know why — I love the saints!" She just smiled at me, weakly because she felt so lousy; I was in and out of her room (quietly) all day.
Anesthesia arrived to perform a treatment that would alleviate her headache, but she needed to sign a consent form. I sat on the side of her bed while she was reading and when she was finished, she looked up at me and said "You're *her*!"
"Excuse me?"
"You're her — you were the saint that came in when the baby looked funny…."
I immediately said "Oh my gosh!! You were the pregnant mommy!!"
We ended up chatting about the entire event, the mama and baby are now doing fine (thank God) and she looked at me and said "You were such an angel that day… I knew something was very wrong, but you were so calm and did what you had to do — that was the main reason why I didn't have morphine because I was afraid of what it would do to my baby…"
I said "You were an angel too! You were in there at the right time — it is amazing how He surrounds us with His saints, isn't it?"
And with that, she took off one of her bracelets and slipped it onto my wrist. She said "you are one, too. This is for you, I want you to have it."
I was rendered speechless and simply said "thank you — thank you so much" prior to leaving her room. I am hard-pressed to recall when such a gift meant more to me than this sweet cherry bracelet… no WaWa card necessary, thanks.
