Anonymous Pediatricians Share The Biggest Blowouts Between Families They've Seen On The Job
Delivering a baby is a big task, but when you have multiple family members involved, things can get a bit crazy and complicated. In fact, there are so many things that could go wrong because family drama is the strongest type of drama, especially when there is a new born baby in the mix. Doctors are right at the center of all the action and have all of the best stories.
Roach2791 asks:
Doctors who deliver babies, what's the most intense s*** you've seen go down between families in the delivery room?
These stories are better than anything you have seen at your family reunion.
The husband who delivered a K.O.
A doctor was delivering the baby via ventouse, a vacuum extraction. He was pulling, and you do honestly have to put some muscle into it, those babies are stuck pretty fast in there sometimes. Anyway, the suction cap came off the baby's head, this happens a lot. The father of the baby thought that the doctor had pulled so hard that he had pulled the baby's head off, so naturally punched the doctor in the jaw, who went straight down to the ground like a felled tree. Much yelling ensued, people holding the father back, him realising that the baby was fine once we pointed out that the head was still inside, unconscious doctor being pulled into a chair, another doctor coming in to do the delivery, the mother crying hysterically.
We had to have a quick and frantic conversation at the midwives' station about whether to allow the father to remain in the room. We decided that from his vantage point it may have appeared that the baby's head had been, uh, removed and that he had a momentary loss of reason. He was also hugely apologetic and took responsibility for his actions. The doctor who got punched took every opportunity afterwards to tell that story as often as possible and we all laughed.
I thought she was a virgin!
Ambulance officer here.
Got dispatched to "17 year old female, difficult pregnancy. Caller statement: Baby born, didn't know was pregnant. Can't find umbilical cord."
Whooooa boy...
Get there, healthy baby girl born. Mother and grandmother sitting on floor, blood everywhere. Both emotionally shocked. Umbilical cord right where it should be. Grandmother holding baby, outstretches arms and hands me the baby without words while my partner checks out mum.
Grandma comes to me and just says "I thought she was a virgin!"
Mother had texted grandmother while at work to say "Mum, come home, I've had a baby."
The tension in that room... Holy crap.
Double duty dad
Wife just gave birth and we asked that same question to our nurse. She told us about the time a guy brought in his pregnant wife and his pregnant girlfriend. The doctors thought that they were going to try and kill each other so they kept them on separate floors. All the nurses thought the guy was a complete and utter d*bag.
The mystery child
I was once present at the birth of a very white baby to not white parents. The parents spoke a different language to staff and there was this awkward silence while staff tried desperately not to exchange eye contact or stare at the father for his reaction. After a while, it was obvious that the father either hadn't noticed or didn't care, as he looked delighted and was chatting to the mother happily.
Subsequently determined albinism ran in the man's family.
Choose your delivery day carefully if possible
Not a doctor but security guard outside delivery room. I just remember cracking up(wtf moment) as one lady was screaming she would not have her baby born on Hitler's birthday.
when you forget something important
Workmate of mine is about to become a dad in the next week. His wife has been getting to know the nurses at their local hospital and listening to some of the stories....
One day a bloke came running down the ward hallway screaming for help that his wife was in labour and they needed the docs to come quickly! The nurses looked around curiously and asked him "ok... so where is she?"
The colour from the bloke's face drains for a second as he thinks this over...
"OH SHIT!" and he legs it out of there.
40 minutes minutes later he returns with wife in tow. In his initial rush, he'd packed change of clothes, the car seat, camera gear, high tailed it to the hospital and left the missus at home!
When you just aren't sure what that bump on your tummy is...
Not a doctor but a fire fighter. Got called for a pregnancy, baby already born. Get on scene and mom and daughter (who just gave birth) are arguing back and forth. Mom summed her argument up best with "I told ya you was pregnant"
Why is it always the men that can't keep it together?
I'm a doctor but this is not my story. There was this couple who were gonna birth their first. The father though had already a child from a previous marriage. So when it was time for labor, instead of being supportive and calm and leaving it to the professionals. The father went bats* and started screaming "my previous wife wasn't in this much pain, something is wrong". That is exactly what a woman in labor would like to hear
The botch that ended in a career change
I remember doing a delivery as a medical student working with a family medicine resident physician (new doc still being trained and closely supervised). Usually they let the student do a lot of it to get experience, but I remember the attending physician (experienced doc supervising the resident) saying "No no ... Let her do it. She really needs the practice. You just watch."
When an attending says "no no, she really needs the practice," it's not a good sign. Well, baby itself gets delivered and I'm thinking all is good.
After baby is born, you have to deliver the placenta, applying gentle traction on the cord to encourage progress. Gently but consistent. While the attending is distracted by the new baby, I watch horrified as the resident YANKS on the umbilical cord. Of course, it snaps. She gets this look of "oh shit" on her face and "oh shit" is right.
Now, in the best case scenario, delivery of the placenta will proceed because it was almost there anyway. That did not occur here. No matter what encouragement we gave, it was not coming. So drastic measures have to be taken.
When your intentions aren't in the right place
When I was a nursing student doing my OB rotation, a group of us watched our first delivery. There was no time to do an epidural because the baby was ready and he wasn't waiting.
After the baby's delivered, the first thing the dad says is 'You can rub it my ex's face that you did it natural.'
It wasn't a huge dramatic thing but everyone in the room just kinda looked at each other. Like buddy, your son was just born and you're more excited to one up your ex?
Any name will do
Doctor here, I have only ever 'delivered' one baby...(sorry for formatting, on my phone)
So I'm in medical school on my obstetric rotation. I'm doing a late night shift cuz I just want to see some births (labor lasts forever, yo). 20s something schizophrenic woman comes in, laboring with her 6th child. Her mother apparently has custody of the other kids, kind of a sad situation. Police had to break her door down because she went into labor and continuously screamed "I'm not giving birth to Satan's baby! This is Satan's baby!" The doctor I'm with looks unamused and just says to the nurse "sedate her a bit, we'll do a c section if she refused to push, etc". After about 30 minutes and some sedating drugs the doctor tells me to go in and do a pelvic exam and to report to him how far along things are. He went in with me, and then got called out as I'm putting on gloves, saying he'll be back in a minute. I introduce myself to the patient, explain what I'm doing and start the examination. I feel a contracting sensation and next thing I know a baby's head pushes my hands out and I'm holding a screaming newborn. I am so in shock I am just staring at the baby and I start to feabily scream, "I, uh, need, uh, some help here!"
Everything was well with the baby and mom. I had to throw away my socks and shoes.
Edit: I forgot the best part, where the mother goes, "what's your name, I'll name it after you!" It was a boy, I'm female, she insisted I give her my name. I didn't want to screw up this kids life so I said Henry.
The bad omen
This is actually my grandfather's birth sometime in the 1920s: my great grandma was giving birth at home, on the reservation (Apache), and as the labor kicked in full swing, a crow or raven landed on the windowsill.
Now, this is a bad omen, it means someone is going to die or has died. Needless to say, my great x2 aunts and great grandma's mother started straight tripping, shooing the bird and whatnot. Bird would not f* off, looked at my great grandma and squawked.
Grandpa was born a few minutes later, while someone is trying to get the crow to go away. Crow flies off the minute the baby cries. A few minutes later, someone rode up on horseback to tell everyone that my great great grandfather had passed away about 15 minutes beforehand. That was right when the crow had landed on the sill.
Family legend says that grandpa was his reincarnation.
When you can't behave yourself in the hospital
The baby's father was caught cracking open the anesthesia cart and stealing meds. When police officers came to arrest him, he was sobbing and kept saying over and over "y'all aren't going to let me see my baby be born?" and the officers were both like um nope should've thought about that before
Everything is cool
I worked as a hospital parking attendant manning the booth. A car pulled up and the woman was mid way pushing out her baby in the passenger seat. One relative in the back was giving her a back massage, one was fanning her, her kid was playing on his DS, and her husband in the driver seat nonchalantly smiled at me and asked for one ticket all while the mother just delivered her own baby looking calmed like it was a perfunctory task. I didn't know what to do so I just gave them free parking.
The secrets that caused major confusion
Oh. Friends a midwife. Baby comes out looking very very Asian to an apparently white couple. Lots of umms and looks.
Turns out that the father was mixed race on his mums side and she never mentioned it.
Dad is always the weak link
I'm an ICU doctor.. and when they call codes in the birthing suite it's usually pretty awful - a horrific bleed like a CSI scene or a fitting woman giving birth. So your heart kinda sinks when they call that on the overhead.. but this one time, we ran down to t)3 code and dad had passed out cold on the floor next to mum who was mid push and still able to laugh at the hilarity of it all!
A toilet baby!?
Another paramedic I work with went to a lady that had stomach pains for an hour, went to the toilet because she had to poo and then finally did and the poo started crying as it came out.
Mum had no idea she was pregnant, still on the pill and no other normal pregnancy symptoms.
He helped deliver a toilet baby.
No word of a lie, paramedics actually go to this stuff. And it's sometimes hilarious.
Who knew Candy Crush could lead to such a stir
Husband was sitting in the corner playing candy crush on his wife's phone whilst she was in labour, up popped a text message saying "does he know that it might not be his?". Shouting ensued and he walked out and left the unit with her crying.
When you have a history of not really making it to the delivery room
My great grandmother had 13 children. Somewhere around number 5 or 6 she made it as far as the front lawn of the hospital and gave birth. The next pregnancy she only made it as far as the elevator and was totally mortified. The nurse on staff tried to reassure her by saying "it's okay, last year someone gave birth on the front lawn." She had the rest of her babies at home.
The cult baby
During a somewhat difficult delivery the family members in the room switched from yelling and crying in English during labor to flailing their arms and screaming in highly practiced gibberish something akin to speaking in tongues when the baby was delivered. We had to push them off of us to finish stabilizing the newborn. Everything turned out fine.
