Babies, and babies, and more babies!  Oh my gosh, how fun!  This is the first week of the second semester.  Second semester at JHU means we have two rotations of clinicals, each lasting 7 weeks.  I opted to do OB my first rotation and psych my second...Whew-hoo, babies! 

Yesterday was our first day at the hospital.  First off, I commute.  This term, I commute three days, 1.5 hrs one way, 2 hours back...it's fine, I love it, it gives me much needed time to read/study/sleep/catch up on House M.D.  Two days we are in the hospitals; lucky for me, this time I got a great location.  I'm at a hospital that is just 4 miles from my house in Takoma Park, a quick half hour bike ride (if I so choose to freeze off my fingers and toes) or 12 minutes driving.  Awesome!  Not only that...it is a baby factory.  I am at one of the top hospitals which help moms give birth to the highest number of babies in the state...and I have a wonderful clinical instructor. 

So, yesterday we got the orientation stuff; fill this out, sign that, here's where supplies are, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.  Today was baby day.  First off, I helped with a cesarean...mom had an abnormal situation (placenta gravida) which made it necessary to do a section.  Then I helped mom #2 push through a vaginal birth and mom #3 was another cesarean.  In addition to helping mom, I got to do what those in OB call "eyes and thighs"; the erythromycin for the eyes and Vitamin K for the thighs.  It was my first shot to a human and I think I got through it just fine...I was a little nervous, but hey, that little sucker isn't going to remember it anyway and he's crying already!

I also got to watch a spinal, an epidural, learned to read "the tape" of the fetal heart rate, found a fetal heart rate and put in a foley catheter...all in one eight hour shift.  I think my classmates will be sooooo jealous!