It has been almost four months
since I last posted. The gap is not due to having nothing to say. It may be due
to too much to say and an inability to find the words to say it. I could blame
it on a busy summer, since it has been a busy summer. It may be that I’ve
entered some different phase or way of grieving. Quite possibly it’s a
combination of all of those things. (More on all of this soon – I hope!)
I’ve started a number of
posts in the last few months without finishing any. Then, a couple of weeks ago,
I received an email newsletter from the nurse organization AWHONN (Association
of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nursing), which included a link to
an article entitled A TransformationalJourney Through Birth and Death by Maureen Cavanaugh, DBioethics, MS, MAHCM, RN. The article is about a childbearing
woman whose beliefs regarding birth and death challenge the nurse author’s (and
her staff’s) concepts of care. Both the story of this particular woman’s
journey and the struggles of hospital staff to let go of some nursing care
beliefs and adapt care to meet the needs of this expectant, and then new,
mother is what makes this article so remarkable.
It was a shock to read that the
article’s subject, the expectant/new mother, was dying and had little time left
to live. Still, this “high risk” mother was excited about her soon-to-be-born
baby and believed in no or as little as possible intervention for her baby’s birth.
The dying mother’s desires and the nurses’ usual practices initially seemed poles
apart. During the subject’s prenatal and postpartum stay, a number of the
nurses began to question “usual” practices and adapted care as much as possible
to meet the mother’s desires for this birth and the time she might have with
her baby. Never have I felt more proud to be a registered nurse myself as when
I read of these nurses as they overcame beliefs based on routine versus
research evidence and then worked to individualize nursing care and ensure the
best possible experience for this mother.
As I came to the end of the
AJN article, I looked at the references. A couple came with links to the
referenced articles, which I took so I could learn more. One reference discusses the baby’s mother and her philosophy of birth and death, and I was
struck by something journalist Jennifer
Gish wrote. “Doctors looked…and saw the 42-year-old was dying. Renee… told them she was healing. Dying,
she'd say, might just end up being part
of that process.”
Dying as part of the healing process. Wrap
your head around that. I know I’m trying to do so.
