It's a Beautiful Noise

"An ugly baby is a very nasty object - and the prettiest is frightful."
-Queen Victoria

I'm working nights now, and it seems like what I had heard about more babies being born at night versus during the day is true.  This week alone, I have participated in almost as many deliveries as I did during the first two weeks combined.  I'm also well over the minimum fifteen deliveries that we are required to do during the rotation, which prompted me to ask the chief if that meant I could have next week off.  She rolled her eyes at me and said, "I don't think so."  Well, I thought it was funny, anyway.

As interns, we are only involved with the low risk deliveries, while the junior and senior residents take on the higher risk patients.  There was one night where we had four low risk patients in labor all at the same time, and my med student and I were running from room to room like crazy checking on them all.  Of course, they all delivered at almost the same time too, which was around 4 AM.

Maybe it was the time of night, and maybe it was just the timing, period.  But I was a little freaked out by how much deja vu I seemed to be experiencing.  Patient #1 delivers first, and the baby is in the warmer, crying.  (You'd be crying too if someone just smeared erythromycin ointment in your eyes, and then stabbed you in the thigh with a gigantic needle to give you a shot of vitamin K.)  We were congratulating the parents, and the mother says, "Is it weird that I love hearing her cry?"

Now, you have to understand that to me, a crying newborn sounds kind of like a lamb bleating, and it's not an especially pleasant sound at all.  The worst is when one of them starts crying in the nursery, and then the whole nursery-full starts wailing.  That is a grating, nails-on-chalkboard kind of sound.  But by this point, I've heard enough newborn bleating that I can kind of tune it out.  I can even tune screaming women in labor out.  So I said, "No, it's not weird at all.  Though you may not feel this way in a few weeks!"  She and the father laughed and agreed.  I filled out the paperwork, and just then, a nurse poked her head in to tell me that my patient in the room next door was also pushing and the baby's head was starting to crown.

I ran next door, gowned and gloved, and there was delivery #2 for that night.  The baby was in the warmer, crying, and the mother turns to me and says, "Is it weird that I love hearing her cry?"  What I wanted to say was, "Yes, it's weird, and what weirds me out the most about it is that the lady next door asked me the exact same question half an hour ago!"  But I didn't.  Instead, I smiled at her and said, "No, it's not weird at all.  Though you may not feel this way in a few weeks!"  She and the father laughed and agreed.  I filled out the paperwork, and just then, a nurse poked her head in to tell me that my patient in the room next door was also pushing and the baby's head was starting to crown.

I made a hasty exit to room #3, vowing to avoid discussions about the auditory aesthetics of babies crying at all costs....