Conrad Murphy
“Hello?” I said.
“Hey, guess what!” my wife shouted through the telephone.
“What?” I said inquisitively, still punching keystrokes at work.
“My OB called and said that they have an opening if you want go for induction tonight instead of tomorrow! Do you want to do it?” My wife’s voice was reaching the top shelf of excitement, I could essentially hear her smiling through the speaker.
“If you’re fine with it, let’s do it!” I said.
“Yes, absolutely! We’re gonna have a baby tomorrow!” My wife hung up and I sent a few messages to my boss to notify them that we were going to the hospital tonight and my one week off was starting right away. I drove home a little quicker than I usually did after work. When I got home I found Sarah rummaging through the house even though we’ve had everything packed for weeks. Our phones were buzzing and ringing constantly with messages from friends and family excited about the arrival of our daughter hopefully a day from now.
We were absolutely giddy on the drive up to the hospital, looking forward to the whole experience. After admission we settled down in our room and my wife started getting hooked up to multiple IVs as well as a bulky fetal monitor to make sure our daughter’s heart was beating in the appropriate range. I took my spot on the couch and we each did our best to get some sleep, although the traces of adrenaline and Sarah’s positioning weren’t allowing for many dreams to come. The morning came quickly and we had multiple visits from our nurses and multiple cervical exams. Induction was in full swing now and the contractions eased into rhythm.
Throughout the early years of our relationship, I witnessed firsthand the strength of Sarah. She was an athlete all her life and played collegiate softball as well as balancing multiple jobs at the time. She is tough. She doesn’t let anything keep her down. One battle she faced in childhood was scoliosis. During one of our first dates she showed me an x-ray of her spine and we both laughed at how it curved like a swan’s neck down her back. She had corrective surgery and one of the quirks that she claimed afterward was that she would always have perfect posture, the titanium rods keeping her manners in check for the rest of her life.
We knew that this may be a complication with the epidural, but her surgeon had explicitly told her that he left “room” during her surgery so that she could receive an epidural block in the future if she wished. That was our expectation coming onto the labor and delivery floor. My wife could handle the pain; there was no doubt in anyone’s mind for anyone who knew her. However, she wanted to enjoy the experience, not just to tolerate it. We wanted that incredible gift of modern medicine. She wanted her first thoughts of birth to be of welcoming her daughter into the world, not praying for the contractions to stop.
We brought this concern to her obstetrician during previous visits, but it wasn’t in his wheelhouse, so to speak. A man in scrubs came in during the morning hours to meet with us about getting an epidural block as my wife’s contractions began to pick up due to the induction medication. We explained the situation to him, showed him x-rays, and he examined her back. After discussing it with him, he told us that Sarah wasn’t going to receive the epidural. I was sympathetic to his argument at first because he told us of the catastrophe that could occur if her titanium rods were to become infected. It would be the beginning of a horrendous medical experience with roads that were uncertain of where they ended up. I heard my wife’s voice at his response. It changed. At this point in the story I’m ashamed to say that I should have fought for her at this moment. I knew what she wanted. I was here to support her decisions, yet I was silent. I was less than a foot from her and also across the world from her. Nowhere near. Sensing the brokenness in my wife’s voice, the anesthetist finished his thought by saying, “Women have done this for thousands of years.”
There my wife was, between two men – one unwilling to step in for her, and one dismissing her. The anesthetist departed and the room fell silent aside from the occasional monitor beep nearby. My wife just looked down to her hands, wringing the hospital blanket in her lap. Tears fell on the fabric. Unfortunately, contractions don’t wait for the sentiment to pass. God told Eve that her pain in childbirth would increase. And increase it did. I became more and more useless as the morning drew on. I sat there holding Sarah’s hand, seeing the pain roll across her in bigger and bigger waves, the crests growing higher and troughs between them growing shorter. The movies I’d seen betrayed my expectation of the pain. Many of the women I’d seen on the television screen were yelling, throwing things across the room. I wished that it had been that way for my wife more than what her labor was like.
This pain was different. I’d never seen it before in anyone. You knew the pain came because the breaths from her hospital bed ceased. They were cut off, suffocated out until the cycle coursed through. All you could see were clenched arms and my wife’s lip quivering as silent tears made their way down to her chin. The pain brought silence. Commanded it. At some point during the onslaught the charge nurse came in to check on us. Our delivery was the talk of the floor. It was a cruel joke to many of the nurses that Sarah was induced, told that she could have the epidural block, then that gift ripped out from under her while she was already well into induction. The nurse gave us the option of continuing in labor or to stop the induction and go home until the contractions became spontaneous. She warned us that the contractions during induction are stronger and worse than if they occur spontaneously.
My wife looked at me through red eyes and told me that she didn’t want to go. She was too excited to see the baby; she didn’t want to get back in the car. She wasn’t leaving without our daughter buckled up in the car seat. So she continued and continued. I am vastly underqualified to explain what my wife and so many women have felt during this time. I can say, however, that there is no worse feeling as a man when your partner is so physically close and so obviously in distress, yet you are unable to provide any relief whatsoever. All I did was listen and console.
After some time we got word that another anesthesiologist wanted to meet with Sarah. A couple more minutes went by and our door opened to a tall woman with a bright, multicolored scrub cap on. She introduced herself and told Sarah that she personally knew who was her spine surgeon and knew that he usually left enough space for the epidural. “I know that you were told that you weren’t going to be able to receive one, but we’re going to try.”
This doctor explained in detail about the risks of the procedure and examined Sarah’s back. The male anesthetist came in as well at this time. “She actually has a great presentation,” the physician said to the man as she was pressing in the middle of Sarah’s back. The female anesthesiologist then started the procedure and placed the epidural without any difficulty. The pain increased shortly after the procedure, but after a few very long minutes and some adjustments, relief came. My wife laid back and we watched television until it was time to deliver. It took less than 30 minutes from when Sarah started pushing for our daughter to make it into the world. We had to wait on our OB to get there or she would’ve arrived earlier. I saw a beautiful enraptured gaze extending from my wife’s eyes to our baby girl’s. Her mind was fixated on our daughter, not her pain.
We spent the next night almost sleepless, but still thankful. The next day we had a host of hospital visitors including a pediatrician, a lactation consultant, nurses, our obstetrician, and the anesthesiologist. She came in to check and make sure that Sarah was having no signs of infection or discomfort. It was an extremely gracious gesture and my wife’s eyes lit up when she walked through the door again. A lasting impact was made in a shorter time that most physicians have to make such a footprint in the lives of their patients.
I don’t believe that there are any “bad guys” in this story. There are no villains here, but there is a lesson, and there is a heroine. At the end of the day it took a woman to understand and fully grasp the mind of my wife. It took a woman to act out in courage for a patient that wasn’t originally hers. It took a woman who was fully confident in her skills and her ability to comfort. We men were not players in this story. We failed to act and unfortunately I’m afraid this isn’t the only time this has occurred, not by a long shot.
I understand that as a future physician, I will never be able to understand or grasp the depth of a woman’s pain during childbirth, or much of a woman’s experience altogether. There will be women in my care, however. What I learned from that female physician and from the male anesthetist is that it is because I will never fully understand that I must act with care and precision – not only to train well in the procedures I will face, but to connect meaningfully and sensitively with the body of diverse patients I will meet. We need more women to teach us, we need to listen to the experiences of our female patients and the instruction of our female attendings. The solution is not to shirk from the changing landscape of medicine, but to embrace it. To the anesthesiologist that acted and relieved my wife’s pain, I want you to know that my daughter will hear of your bravery. It’s my hope that she will be inspired and choose to live as you do. Quick to act, careful to listen, and persistent in the face of opposition.
Conrad Murphy is a second-year medical student in the College of Medicine at UAMS. He lives in Conway with his wife Sarah and daughter Reuelle. They are expecting their second child in spring 2023.