The Story of Baby Jordan

After ten years, and many experiences, memories about life and death have been the most profound of all. Although I do not fully understand why, I believe God has a purpose in everything, and allows things to happen for a reason. Patients come into your life for a reason, and God entrusts them in your care. Now, I know why I am a nurse. 

          ~Julie A. Louder, RN

     Nurses save lives every day. Because we are with patients 24/7, we are usually the first ones on the scene when a crisis occurs.  We are taught to observe patients for changes in their status. Early warning signs of stroke or heart attack? Too much blood loss after surgery? Metabolic changes caused by diabetes or electrolyte imbalance? It is probably going to be a nurse who first observes these changes and gets the ball rolling on treatment. In Labor/Delivery, status changes can be very rapid and require immediate response by the nurse. Nurses in this department have special training in OB emergencies. And we all hope we never have to use that training...

     About 15 years ago I was working day shift in L&D at a small community hospital. My assignment that day was a patient who had been admitted for induction of labor. Back then we did an awful lot of inductions. Doctors liked to do them because it made labor a daytime event and allowed them to have a little more control over their schedules. Patients liked them because they could schedule child care for other kids, alert family members (most of whom showed up at the hospital way too early!) and have more control over their schedules. It seemed like a win/win for everyone...

     My patient was a very sweet woman who was being induced with her second baby. Her husband was also very nice. Because these patients are not in active labor at the beginning, it gives the nurse time to chat with them and get to know them a little bit. I thoroughly enjoyed this young couple-- they were excited to be having a second baby, and had brought lots of photos of the first one and shared them with me. As the morning wore on, signs of labor began, and the patient began to have contractions. By lunch time they were fairly regular but still not painful. Mom's physical status was great and the fetus was doing well according to the monitor. I was going to get some lunch. L&D staff usually dine on the unit and watch the fetal monitor strip remotely using a monitor screen in the break room. That was my plan.

     I sat in the break room munching on a sandwich when I noticed a sudden and very deep drop in the fetal heart tracing. Uh oh... I leaped to my feet and headed for her room. As I passed the nurses' station, her call light went on. I heard her voice over the intercom as the unit secretary answered the light say she thought her water had just broke.

     I got to the room and the patient was grinning. "My water broke!" she said, and then apologized for the mess. I grabbed an exam glove, as the fetal heart tracing was still very low. I put the head of her bed down flat and examined her. And my heart pounded as I realized I was feeling the umbilical cord, which had been flushed out when the water broke. This was baby's lifeline, looped down past the baby's head and potentially pinched off by the head. It is an extreme OB emergency called an umbilical cord prolapse and is only treated one way-- emergency cesarean delivery!

     I hit the call light on the bed with my spare hand, praying for a quick response. I got it. "Set up the OR-- we've got a prolapse!" I called to the unit secretary. "Get another nurse in here STAT and get the doc! I need anesthesia!" 

     Until the baby can be delivered surgically, his or her little head had to be held off the cord to prevent it from being pinched off the circulating blood that was bringing it oxygen. That meant I had to remain with my hand inside holding up baby's head. To help further with some gravity, I got the bed into a flat slant with the mother's head lower than her feet.  I looked at the patient now, and saw sheer terror in her eyes. "We have a real emergency here," I said to her and her husband. "I am not going to have time to explain everything to you now, but we must take you to the operating room quickly and get baby out via cesarean section. I promise I will explain everything to you after this is over. And I won't leave you..." With that, and with another couple nurses in the room, we took off for the OB operating room.

     The nurse anesthetist was waiting on us. The physician arrived, examined the patient to verify my findings, and the patient was put to sleep. No time for an epidural, and the position required to put that in was impossible with our situation.  I had to remain under all the surgical drapes still supporting the baby's head until it was delivered. (Those of us in OB refer to this as "shaking hands with the surgeon"...) Out came a screaming, pink and obviously very healthy little boy.

     Because the room was full of staff, once I was not needed to hold up baby's head, I didn't have a role in the surgery team. That meant I was free to go talk to the dad. Because it was an emergency and the patient was going to go to sleep, he had not been allowed in the room. The unit had a back door to the OR and a little anteroom there. I asked the surgeon if it would be okay if I brought the father into this little ante room where he could get a look at and maybe even hold his baby. She agreed.

     When I got back to the patient's room, there was her husband. He was still sitting on the same chair, in the same position he was in when we dashed out of the room with his wife. Only he had his head in his hands. He jumped to his feet when I came in. "Everything is okay!" I said. "The baby is fine! Your wife is asleep but she is going to be fine." He exhaled loudly, looking ashen and stunned. I gave him a brief explanation of what had happened, and then asked him if he'd like to go see his son. He was out the door before I was. I took him in the back way to the ante room where he got a close up view of his new baby son. The baby was pink and screaming-- mad as could be at the disturbance in his world. Dad grinned and then he started to cry. He gave me a huge hug and cried on my shoulder... "I was so scared... I thought I'd lost them both..."

     The patient had a completely normal recovery from her surgery. They named the baby Jordan. I gave them as thorough an explanation of what had happened as possible, as did the surgeon. My work schedule had me working the next couple days, so I was able to care for this family as they recovered and went home. Over those few days, the enormity of what might have happened sunk in and the mother started calling Jordan "my miracle baby".  They thanked me profusely. I was introduced to the extended family visitors that arrived. I felt like part of the family!

     Over time, I heard from this family with photos of Jordan as he grew. I kept a photo of him on my locker door, labelled "Jordan - cord prolapse in Rm 12" to remind me of the bond I had with this family, and also the importance of training and emergency preparedness.  About 2 years afterwards, one evening when I was too tired to fix dinner, I took my two sons out to eat at their favorite restaurant Steak 'N Shake. The "please wait to be seated" sign was up, so the three of us stood there waiting on someone to take us to a booth. That's when I heard a voice cry, "BARB! Oh look honey, it's our nurse, Barb!"  Sure enough, there was this little family. Mom, Dad, older brother who was 4 and a darling, curly blond headed 2 year old boy named Jordan, all having dinner. He looked happy and active. His mother gushed over me, gave me a big hug. Then she said to my two teenage sons, "Your mother saved our baby's life!" 

     I cannot lie. That kind of acknowledgement in front of my boys made me proud. I still am proud-- that I had good training and was able to perform well in this emergency. That gave little Jordan a chance at a normal life, and his parents a whole and healthy family. They trusted that I, as a professional nurse, would perform well in an emergency. It was my responsibility to them to do so. Or, as we so often tell our thankful patients, "Hey, that's my job..."  And what a rush it can be to realize you have had this kind of impact on someone's life. It makes up for all the body fluid exposures, all the cranky, unrealistic patients and families and physicians. I am very, very thankful I was the one that was chosen that day to save a life. It has made all the difference in my own.