Introducing...

Introducing Bluebell.

She is the latest in the stable of Wild Women (WW). She is destined to be a birthday gift for a friend.

I have used different sizes and shapes of beads for her to create texture and to hint at hidden depths. There are many layers and facets to Bluebell that are not immediately obvious. She is going to a rather special friend. With hidden depths. And layers.

Here she is with her sisters Polly and Woman. They need more sisters. I know someone red, and someone green are just lurking somewhere. Maybe someone bluesy. Someone even more wild (did you see the comment that their original designer/creator left on the first post I did about them?). I spent a bit of time online choosing accessories for more WW -I'm trying to challenge myself to make someone genuinely wild, instead of pretty or elegant (I never thought my work being described as elegant would make me feel I'd been safe).

Anyway, when I'm not creating elegant Wild(ish) Women I have been to work, where I had a day as section queen, and then a lovely shift with a primip who seemed to warm to me instantly and declared herself very keen to push her baby out into my hands.

Her story had me feeling slightly reserved about the possibility of this happening, as she had had an epidural at 1cm dilation (!), was a fairly large lady and had collapsed and spent a while on the floor until she got feeling back in her legs. The trace looked pretty dodgy as soon as I saw it, and I was quite sure that the docs would be hovering and keen to use any excuse to chop her.

However we bonded nicely, and she was quite unaware of the concerns we were feeling in the background. The synto was on at a reasonable level, and the baby was moving heaps - always a good sign. The docs were busy with a string of other emergencies, so they had enough to keep them busy while I just kept her calm and distracted, and we chatted and laughed, and talked and I answered her questions and it was all sweet. When it was time to examine her I felt she was very well dilated. almost fully, but the head kept moving and swinging from side to side as if baby was jockeying for position for descent. Its a strange feeling, but you know baby has a bit of room and energy to move well, so its usually good.

We positioned her on the side to await the last little bit of dilation and to allow the baby to descend as completely as possible before she started pushing. The woman had a medical condition where it was preferable to avoid prolonged pushing effort. There was a lot of rectal pressure pain, but a bit of epidural tweaking helped with that. In the end, she only pushed about 4-5 contractions worth and pushed out a very sweet little girl, creamy and pink with fair hair. The medical student (the one who had got such an eyeful on her first birth [forceps, very ugly] with me in early July) got a lovely catch and we couldn't praise little Aimee's Mum enough. So clever. What a complete genius she was to labour so beautifully, and push out such a splendid baby with so little fuss. Her mother and husband were thrilled to bits, as was she herself. It was such a love-in. Baby Aimee went skin to skin with Mum while she had a few stitches put in and was calm and alert and cooing and communicative. It was gorgeous.

So I skipped home, glowing with delight at having helped to create such a positive birth experience for this young woman. Those kinds of births really help sustain one's energy. Even though there was an epidural, and augmentation of labour, and a continuous trace, and fluids and catheters and blood in the urine, there was a pretty normal birth behind it all. In the end her cervix dilated really smoothly and she birthed beautifully. I just know her next birth will be even better, with the confidence that she now has in her body and her abilities.

I love being a midwife.