[Since this IS a "Diary" and I need to debrief myself before I spiral down the drain of total motherhood-phobia. All are welcome to read, but I'm not promising anything pretty. In fact, look away while you can.]
To start off, IRL, I'm a student nurse from the Philippines under the
supposedly best nursing school available. I'm middle class and live a
comfortable, non-threatening life which is much more than what is mostly
available to my fellow countrymen. According to curriculum and course
requirements, we have to accomplish a certain number of deliveries; handled,
assisted, and baby cords to cut and clean if we want to graduate properly.
Of course, as student nurses in a third-world country, we also get assigned
to government-managed health centers and clinics.
In a certain lying-in clinic, in a certain impoverished sector of society, I
got my first handled delivery; meaning, I was the nurse standing behind the
midwife, handing the tools and the gauze napkins, gazing into the wide-open
gates of life. Well, more like staring. And I wasn't really acting of my own
accord. Our clinical instructor had to yell commands like a drill sergeant
because our newbie team was scared shitless. Anyway... It was, as we say, a
"toxic" day. It was the third consecutive delivery in that cramped,
approximately, 10 x 7 foot delivery room and the patient was being less than
reasonable for a woman in labor. The staff was overworked and underpaid and
had little patience left for the patient I was assigned to. It's hard to
explain what happened there... [Kiddies, sensitive material somewhere ahead.
If you don't want to have nightmares, DO NOT READ. I mean it.] The patient
gave up on the baby. She said she couldn't deliver it anymore even though we
could already see the head just beyond the opening. It took nearly an hour
just to persuade her from getting off the bed. And the attitude of the
midwife wasn't helping, she was screaming that she didn't want to put up
with it anymore and by the way, they were somewhat physical with the
patient. It was not the kind of service I envisioned; the service a
healthcare professional should be giving to a needy individual who was in
pain. I was appalled. When she finally agreed to continue delivering her
baby, she was even more panicked and flailing when the midwife inserted the
curved scissors and gave her the classic, non-anesthesized episioraphy.
That's scientific for "slicing your v****a without painkillers". Well, there
WAS anethesia... AFTER the slicing. Logic, anyone?? And God, doctors say you
can't feel it, but she did scream when those scissors came. And the blood,
GOD, the BLOOD!!! It was f*ckin* projectile motion!!! Good thing I jumped
back in time or the two-foot spray would've hit me square on my all-white
uniform which, by the way, we would have to wash by hand since we don't own
a washing machine. Hm. Yes, I'm traumatized. Hard not to be when you feel
like you're in a torture room and you're helping stitch the person up. And
the thing I hated most that happened in there went something like, "Hmm.
Look at that. She's got sensitive labia." And the callousness!! How could
you be so numb to someone else's pain and nonchalantly state that you were
in fact so after you've inflicted that pain to them?!?! If that is how
people who are supposed to be saving others are, I should think I've
glimpsed the evil of this world.
And it's so sad... To have my innocence stripped where it is born. I'm an
idealist, I admit. And I see the world through rose-colored glasses. That
day, they snatched it right off my face and stepped on it before my very
eyes.
I'm not saying that there shouldn't be pain. Basically, pain tells you that
something is happening and that you should react appropriately. Pain enables
opportunities to develop courage and resilience and so many other virtues.
What I'm saying is that... Although your work is routine, you have NO RIGHT
to lose your heart. Especially when you're working with people. It might not
look painful to you; but know that fundamentally, people experience even one
thing totally differently and you should be sensitive to that. Also the
other way around; it may be painful for you but we live in a completely
interactive world and you're not the only one suffering.
And it's hard to realize that there might be very little I can change about
that. Because it's a systemic thing. It's a lack of awareness that may root
from anything from poverty to family dysfunction to psychological illness to
lack of education to government irresponsibility. For now, I guess I just
have to worry about how to deal with the pain without becoming totally numb
to it.
animagenic Community Member 
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