“Did you get to hear the heartbeat this morning?” I ask.
She immediately brightens up. “Yes. Nice and strong.”
“That’s what we like to hear.”
Jake arrives a few minutes later. He looks like he slept in a pile of kids, and Garrett immediately offers to go in search of coffee for him, even though we had big Thermoses on the drive down from Pine Harbour.
I leave Jake and Dani to have some time alone, and go to find Dr. Schmidt. The breech baby from the night before had converted to a c-section in the middle of the night after attempting a vaginal delivery, so he never ended up leaving.
“I got a few hours sleep in between, though. It’s turning into an eventful two days here. And tomorrow is our weekly clinic day when we see every pregnant person in Bruce and Grey County.” He grins. “A slight exaggeration. The midwifery clients don’t come in unless there’s a complication. You can come if you’re a glutton for work.”
“We’re driving back to Ottawa tomorrow, otherwise you know I would. All the OBs have clinic on the same day?”
“Yep. There’s only four of us right now. It’s jammed but manageable.”
“How many deliveries do you do each year?”
He starts rhyming off numbers. How many births thewhole hospital sees—seven hundred a year, which surprises me for how quiet the ward has been yesterday and today—how the docs split up the calendar, how many midwives have admitting privileges. And then he shrugs. “You’d have to ask my assistant. I can remember all of the faces of the delivering moms, but numbers? I’m not a numbers guy. How about you?”
I can’t imagine just going with the flow like that. “Two hundred and three this year. Not all actively involved in, but c-sections scrubbed in for, or births assisted with.”
He rocks back on his heels. “That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. But that’s the life, right?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. Most places.”
That shrug sticks with me as a nurse swings by to tell us the procedure room is ready for us. There’s another resident with us this morning, a friendly family medicine PGY2. As he’s scrubbing up, Schmidt pulls me aside.
“Would you mind doing some teaching with Dr. Kumar this morning? Dani has already said she’s fine with having an extra observer.”
“Of course. I just assumed.”
“You’re a guest here. I wouldn’t impose if you weren’t willing.”
That sticks with me, too.
So the procedure takes a little longer than usual, but it’s good.
And when I walk back to Dani’s room with her on her stretcher, a kernel of an idea starts to bloom.
Schmidt joins us a few minutes later with discharge papers.
“Take it easy. Let your husband do everything.”
“On it,” Jake says, dead seriously.
“You might have cramping and more bleeding over thenext couple of days, but that’s normal. I texted Kerry and she said she has a handheld doppler you can borrow to keep hearing the heartbeat.”
“I ordered one online last night,” Dani confesses.
“Try to use it sporadically. Don’t let it become your arbiter of the pregnancy progression, all right? But I think you’ll be fine. And I’ll see you in my clinic in two weeks.”
“Thank you.”
Garrett holds out my coat. “Ready to go to cousin lunch?”
“Yep.” I blow kisses to Dani and Jake. “You’ll be missed today.”
