Rachel Marrah: The Birth of my Career

“It’s a girl!” the midwife says as she hands me the baby. I document the time at 11:50 pm. I take the baby as the midwife helps dad cut and clamp the umbilical cord. I feel unsure what to do next, but then I remember what I saw all the nurses do previously as I observed them earlier. I start by drying the baby with a cloth. I feel scared as she did not start crying right away. I thought she was not going to make it because time froze for what seemed like minutes before she started crying. However, after more stimulation and rough drying, she finally started crying. I took her under the radiator for some warmth as I check her vital signs.

 Everything looked great with a stable heart rate and respiratory rate. She looks nice and pink. The baby is forty-one weeks old, and everything is in a normal range. At this point, the other nurse on duty comes rushing in frantically and discombobulated, but soon calms down when she sees the delivery was successful without any major complications. She helps me give the baby some erythromycin for her eyes and some other immunizations. We then give her to dad for some skin to skin contact while mom is being sewn up and examined from her mild episiotomy. It was a very happy moment for not only me but for this new beautiful family.

 Earlier that evening, at 7 pm, I entered the rural hospital of Cape Coast, Ghana for my third consecutive night shift on the labor and delivery unit. I enjoyed the night shift because I was able to do more as a nursing student due to the naturally lower staff. That night, there was only one doctor, a midwife, and two labor and delivery nurses. 

They sent the other staff to the postpartum unit due to the low patient load. The nurses found the low patient load surprising because it is a full moon. They said the full moon helped the babies descend quicker causing more women to go into labor. 

There was only one patient in labor when I arrived, and she had been in labor since that morning. She was having a very slow labor process because this was her first child, and that was expected. There was a lot of help available because she was the only patient. It was almost necessary having everyone in the room because of the long and tedious labor. The mom was pushing for three hours because of her small pelvis and a large baby. 

At the end of the delivery, the nurses were performing assessments on the newborn and helping the doctor with mom. One of the nurses asked me to go get some more towels for mom. As I was walking to get a towel, I passed by another delivery room, and the midwife called out to me. She asked me to come in and to glove up. I put on gloves and to prepare for whatever the midwife was going to ask me to do next. However, I am not sure I will ever be ready for what she was going to ask me to do next. 

There was a new patient in this room. She must have been referred to this hospital because she had another hospital tag on her wrist. I washed my hands and put on gloves expecting to hand items to the midwife during labor. However, she placed me at the foot of the bed as she got on top of the patient’s bed and pushed on mom’s abdomen to help labor the baby. She told me that this baby is very large and is having a hard time fitting through the birth canal. She already gave the mom an episiotomy. She was pushing on the abdomen, and she had me looking for the head. 

I started to see the head crown, but when the contraction ended, and she was no longer pushing the head retracted back into the birth canal. When I first saw the head, I panicked and tried to back away. The nurse yelled at the mom to push and yelled at me to pull the baby’s head. She helped me with the head as she also kept constant pressure on the uterus. 

Everything was happening so fast. The mom was exhausted; she had already been pushing for thirty minutes before I arrived, but she continued to push even without pain medications. 

After about another fifteen minutes, which seemed like much longer, the head was delivered. After one extra push, the body was delivered as well. The father praised God in rejoicing for the delivery. The nurse then took the baby and showed it to mom and dad saying, “It’s a girl!”. 

Volunteering at Projects Abroad solidified my calling in becoming a nurse. I had questions and doubts about nursing as my major. However, after my experience in Ghana, I feel more certain than ever about my career choice. I genuinely loved every unit that I worked on in my time in Ghana. 

Now, the next hard decision I must make is what unit I wish to work in after graduation. After this grand experience, I feel a passion towards labor and delivery along with woman’s health not only because of this unique experience I was able to have so early on in my nursing career but because of this strong bond built with patients during a precious moment in a newborns life. In every unit I worked in: medical, surgical, pediatrics, neonatal intensive care unit, labor and delivery, intensive care unit, leprosy, burns and others, I had similar hands-on experience in which ultimately prepared me for my current year of nursing school that I could not have prepared for in any other way. 

In my current clinicals, I learn mainly through observations. However, with this unique experience through Projects Abroad in Ghana, I was able to learn by experience which for my learning style is most efficient as a nursing student.  

Rachel Marrah is currently a Junior 2 nursing major and is expected to graduate in May 2019. She attended a medical program through Projects Abroad for six weeks in the summer of 2017 in Cape Coast, Ghana. During this time, she spent two days a week volunteering at a leprosy camp and three days a week while at a small hospital.