Stork Pin

Today, I earned my stork pin. I actually got to help deliver a baby, and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. The mother of the baby was extremely lucky. I had been thinking at lunch that someone might deliver a baby and we should be ready. I put together a delivery kit and set a table aside in the operating room. Sure enough, a woman in a truck whose water had already broken happened to find me. I brought her into the room and called Colonel Dominguez, the doctor in charge. This woman was about to deliver. I helped her through the contractions for and hour and a half, and at 535pm, a baby girl was born, but she was not breathing. I found an infant size bag valve mask to try to get the baby to breathe manually. One of the army technicians ran out to the helicopter pad. The helo was about 5 minutes from taking off. They unloaded all the patients already on the helo and put the baby girl in. She was flown to the comfort where she was intubated and started breathing again. Being able to help deliver a child was an awesome experience I will never forget. I thank God that circumstances were as they were, and we were able to help save the child.