Brrrrt Reynolds

The title refers to a joke Seth and I used to make when cold. You could also say "Brrrt Lancaster," "Brrrtrand Russell," what have you. :)

It's nice and winter-like here in Pittsburgh. I arrived here yesterday and started my OB/GYN rotation today. I had an orientation in the morning, some sitting around, lunch, talked to a nice patient, learned from a super-nice scrub nurse how to scrub in for surgeries (really not so bad), and arrived back on the L&D floor (that's labor and delivery for those of you not in the biz) just in time to hear the cries of that nice patient's brand-new baby. Also, I got to observe the placenta being delivered. I think I can safely sum up the delivery process in one word: bloody.

I awkwardly walked back and forth between the mother's bed and the baby's warmer, watching everything. The moment I find myself most reflecting on, sitting here this evening, is when the baby stopped wailing and just opened his eyes and looked around. My face was right in front of his, and I think he might have seen me. But newborns don't have control of anything, really, so his eyes just sort of rolled around, fixing on one point now and again and then rolling to another side. But it still struck me, that this twenty-minute-old baby was obtaining his first visuals of the outside world. Welcome!

So I guess the two words to describe the birth process are: bloody and awe-inspiring. We'll see how much I like it in the coming weeks, I guess.