when you think it can't get any worse...

The week, even though I was alone, started very nicely. I had a beautiful birth in the clinic. It was just me and the birthing mother, and she did an incredibly good job. It's a strange feeling to have no one around, but to be able to work all alone. In Braunschweig, even if there is no doctor available, I at least have a great team that always helps me, but there I was completely on my own.

On Thursday, I also had a very nice birth and wanted to finish work afterwards. But unfortunately, everything turned out differently. I heard shouts from the station's bathroom and all the pregnant women were very upset. So I quickly ran there and there was a pregnant woman squatting on the toilet (which is just a hole in the floor here). Unfortunately, I didn't know her and just assumed that she was having the urge to push. I looked behind her into the toilet hoping that the baby was not already there. But after taking a look, I realized that the pregnant woman was still in the early stages of pregnancy and there was a baby at about 23 weeks in the toilet. Since I didn't know what to do, I ran back but couldn't find anyone. In the delivery room, there was the anesthesiologist who had let in and admitted a woman in labour just 10 minutes earlier. So I went to her and told her about the woman in the early stage of pregnancy. The woman in the delivery room gave birth to her son weighing 2.9 kg after 5 minutes in a "Glückshaube" (this means that the amniotic sac is still intact and the baby is born inside the sac). After the baby was born, I looked up at her and wondered why her belly didn't get smaller. After a few seconds, I knew what was coming - armed with my hands and the Pinard, I quickly felt and listened to her belly. Now my thoughts were confirmed. The little one will probably get a sibling. I examined the woman again and noticed that it won't be long until the birth. In the meantime, a doctor and a nurse finally came, but they didn't really care, although they could tell me that the woman didn't know about it either. 13 minutes later, the little sister was born weighing 3.2 kg. Everyone was doing great and the mom was very happy.

Unfortunately, the week did not end well. We had to perform a caesarean section on Friday because here, all women who have previously had a caesarean section have to have another one. So we went to the operating room and the anesthesiologist started preparing everything for general anesthesia. Once again, I wondered what was going wrong here because they always manage to dose the general anesthesia so high that the baby gets everything and after development is completely exhausted, barely breathing, and has a low heart rate. I discussed this with the anesthesiologist and then with the gynecologist, but neither could give me a logical explanation or change their standpoint. So the woman received general anesthesia and a very weak baby was born. We tried our best to wake the baby up, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that well here. Moreover, the seriousness of the situation is not clear to the nurses. In the end, we always give an APGAR score - the baby receives points for breathing, reflexes, pulse, muscle tone, and skin color. The maximum score the baby can get is 10 points. I would have given the baby well-intentioned 3 points, but the nurse gave the baby 7 points! I was speechless and couldn't believe it! I raised my voice for a moment and asked her for an explanation, but unfortunately, she couldn't really give me one. She started saying: you have to give 2 points for skin color - I would have loved to say, yes of course, you have to give 2 points to a black baby for skin color, because it is black, so it has a color! I said that it probably wouldn't help to discuss it and left...