The Night the Midwife Came to Call

By Melinda Bybee

THE NIGHT THE MIDWIFE CAME TO CALL is the recollections of a modern Midwife. It is mostly autobiographical, although there are times when two situations of different births fit one birth with more excitement. All birth stories are essentially true, the names may have been altered for privacy of the client or the Midwife. The stories begin in 1974 and go through 2003. It would be impossible to recall all the births as there were sometimes 3 or 4 births a week, even 3 in one day at one point.
I have selected details from the most exciting births to keep your interest and for me to recall some of the most wonderful times of my life. I retired in 2003 as I was diagnosed with severe panic attacks. But the memories linger in my mind and heart, and I want to put them on paper in some fashion of organization to recall in my later years.
Also the parents I lived with and delivered for will enjoy reading their story and sharing it with the baby born.
I have lent my memories out to several friends for their opinions and they all said I didnt write enough, they wanted more to read. I hope those reading this book will feel the same way, find a Midwife who also delivered babies at home and pick their brains for stories unique to them. Every midwife has her own stories that will delight and intrigue you, ones no other Midwife has experienced.
In the enclosed chapters I explain my desire of wanting to deliver babies at a time when hospital births were the norm, and my process of education to realize the dream. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I have enjoyed writing it down for you and for me.
Love and affection to all my babies and their parents and extended families I was able to meet at such a precious time in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493181100

Melinda Bybee

Melinda Bybee was born in West Texas and lived her childhood years in Dallas. She has been married to an Engineer for Lockheed-Martin for 41 years and they live children. In the early married life of Melinda and Donald they served as foster parents for the State of Texas. In that time they loved and cherished 10 different children, until they either were adopted or went back to their own parents. Melinda's love children was shared by all her children and her husband. When she was 28 years old she decided along with some girlfriends that she wanted to deliver babies at home. It was a struggle to get the education needed for the task as there were no other Midwives in Dallas at that time. Sheer determination on the part of all the aspiring Midwives helped their dream come true. In the interim, Melinda's own children grew up and asked for her services and she was able to home deliver her five grandchildren successfully. One was delivered in a frank breech position and the two of the grandchildren were born six months apart. All this being said and done. Melinda wants to freeze her memories on printed page for the enjoyment of all she helped in this and in the future generations. Grey hair is a blessing but you got to go gracefully and with a song in your heart. This book is Melinda's song hope you sing along with her.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Melinda Bybee. 552977

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904504

ISBN: Softcover      978-1-4931-8348-7

ISBN: Hardcover     978-1-4931-8109-4

ISBN: EBook           978-1-4931-8110-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 11/18/2015

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INTRODUCTION

THE NIGHT THE MIDWIFE CAME TO CALL is the recollections of a modern Midwife. It is mostly autobiographical, although there are times when two situations of different births fit one birth with more excitement. All birth stories are essentially true, the names may have been altered for privacy of the client or the Midwife. The stories begin in 1974 and go through 2003. It would be impossible to recall all the births as there were sometimes 3 or 4 births a week, even 3 in one day at one point.

I have selected details from the most exciting births to keep your interest and for me to recall some of the most wonderful times of my life. I retired in 2003 as I was diagnosed with severe panic attacks. But the memories linger in my mind and heart, and I want to put them on paper in some fashion of organization to recall in my later years.

Also the parents I worked with and delivered for will enjoy reading their story and sharing it with the baby born.

I have leant my memories out to several friends for their opinions and they all said I didn’t write enough, they wanted more to read. I hope those reading this book will feel the same way, find a Midwife who also delivered babies at home and pick their brains for stories unique to them. Every midwife has her own stories that will delight and intrigue you, ones no other Midwife has experienced.

In the enclosed chapters I explain my desire of wanting to deliver babies at a time when hospital births were the norm, and my process of education to realize the dream. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I have enjoyed writing it down for you and for me.

Love and affection to all my babies and their parents and extended families I was able to meet at such a precious time in their lives.

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DEDICATION

I lovingly dedicate my book to JORDAN WEBB. He lived only moments at birth and died of what I perceived to be shoulder dystocia.

However, later the medical examiner explained to me that the newborn had had a rare condition called macrosomia. He measured 27" in length and weighed well over fifteen pounds. Fortunately we transported the mother to the hospital just after his birth and she suffered no excessive bleeding or infection or other adverse affects.

At the time I was sending all my pregnant ladies to a physician for all prenatal care, doing all deliveries and postnatal care myself. Things changed after Jordan died. If I was to be responsible, I wanted control. I started doing the prenatal work myself.

I never suffered the loss of another baby or of a mother.

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PREFACE

THE NIGHT THE

MIDWIFE CAME

TO CALL

(a memoir)

The Night The Midwife Came to Call (a memoir) is a collection of stories told by a caring and innovating midwife. Melinda Bybee shares her experiences as a midwife in the days when home deliveries were rare in the United States

Melinda became a Licensed Vocational Nurse and found experienced and supportive physicians who backed her through the bureaucratic wilderness of being able to legally do home deliveries. Her inspiration to become a midwife in the 1970’s shows her determination to provide home-based health care in an era of hospital-based birthing. She also completed a three year Midwifery Course (Apprentice Accademics) in Texas later in her Midwifery career.

The stories she shares are as entertaining as they are heartfelt. The depth of caring Melinda reveals in these short stories is touching. She always tried to meet the needs of each situation in ways that were as unique as they were innovative. Melinda tells of a joyous rural home delivery followed by the unexpected emergency delivery of an unborn calf, in a nearby field under the full moon. She recounts delivering a baby to a very dear family in a trailer behind their donut shop.

These stories are the result of the author’s personal journey towards healing. I met Melinda in the fall of 2006 in my family practice in Albuquerque. After several visits, I realized the pain she was experiencing was deeper than her various medical conditions and I was not recognizing the underlying cause of her unhappiness with life. I asked her What use to bring you joy in life? I saw a smile flash across her lip and a momentary glimmer in her eyes, before disappearing.

What was that? After some urging she admitted that she missed delivering babies at home! Amazed at this unsuspected past, I inquired more about this history of happiness in her life. She checked my eyes for sincerity. As I did not realize, she trusted no one at this time. When I requested she write down one of her home delivery stories and bring it to her next clinic visit she seemed a little perplexed but agreed.

This became a source of joy for both of us as she began sifting through the stories of her home deliveries and her compassionate witness of the human condition. I felt Melinda began her journey of healing as she shared these stories with me, initially one every visit, and within several months the stories began pouring out of her and a book was born.

Melinda Bybee shares intriguing tales of delivering babies in some of the most amazing situations imaginable. Melinda’s personal involvement with each birth is heartwarming and endearing. She tells of developing a caring relationship with the extended family of a motorcycle group, even though they initially scared the wits out of her by their location and reputation, however, witnessing their unexpected depth of caring within their tight community, and even being invited back to do another delivery within the group!

She tells of delivering a child for a very lovable couple so large that she and the husband took the newborn to the nearby Safeway Grocery Store to have the butcher weigh the baby to be accurate of his weight. Melinda has delivered over a thousand babies, in 35 years, including five of her own grandchildren and was present for the birth of her first great-grand baby.

Melinda bears witness to intimate moments humans share with each other during birthing. She participated in deliveries of babies born in diverse cultures where she navigates complex ethnic customs to involve the fathers in bonding with their newborns. Melinda shares the challenges of a delivery in a Muslim home in the U.S. where the mother had to remain mostly clothed while also anticipating the dilemma of keeping the father present without breaking custom or embarrassing anyone. She deftly evaluates the emotional challenges of the fathers, encouraging them to participate in some way in care of their newborn without overstepping their willingness to be involved or their ability.

Melinda is an astute clinician, melding her medical competency with her insight into human nature and her ability to involve all family members in the welcoming of the newborn into the family. She went beyond what was expected of any clinician in creating experiences that will live on in these families for generations to come.

Now Melinda shares these amazing stories with us in an era when home deliveries are more common and accepted. May her joy and compassion inspire us as providers and health care recipients to be more engaged with each other in this age of increasing medical technology and healthcare expediency.

Christian Meuli M.D.

Albuquerque, New Mexico

EDITED BY

DIANE RAINTREE

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

CHAPTERS

1. To Be A Midwife

2. Childbirth At Home Booklet

3. Duke Lived To See His Son

4. Angus and Daisy

5. Poochy and the Jacksons

6. Mr. and Mrs. Purple

7. Grandma Came from Florida

8. Yunita and Rosi (a letter)

9. Daddy wanted a Boy

10. The Muslim and the Preacher of Christendom

11. Almost Twins

12. Happy Anniversary to Me

13. They were into Hogs

14. James, Another Grandbaby

15. Day Light Donuts

16. First Grandbaby Katie

17. Baby Sister

18. Slam Dunk

19. The Wedding and the Baby

20. Too Many Babies

21. My Best Friend, Kakee

22. Zen and Lianti

23. A Rainy Night in Kapaa

24. Our Precious Jeremiah

25. Ladies from Latvia

26. Lee and Gui Ping

27. Jerry and Susan

28. The Doctor and the Janitor

29. Josie Wong

30. Great Grandbaby

31. Shadia Said and Najib Maktari

BIRTH STORIES BY PARENTS AND SIBLINGS

PICTURES BY SIBLINGS

TO BE A MIDWIFE

I remember back in the mid-1970s a couple of friends of mine and I decided we were seriously interested in delivering babies. At the time we knew of no midwives and no doctors doing home births. Our interest was great, however, and at one friend’s suggestion we met in a small library room to discuss if we were actually going to learn to deliver babies at home, then how we were going to learn how to do it.

Word got out among our other friends about what we were interested in doing. We just needed training and to check with the laws at the time to see what was required to register or license to be midwives.

I talked to my personal doctor about getting the training, and he was more than willing to let me learn how to do prenatal checkups in his office. When he felt he had trained me, six months later, he let me handle all his prenatal patients. Because of the doctor/patient confidentiality I only knew each lady by a number and her face. The doctor trained me to draw blood and check for anemia, urinary problems, and check blood pressure, measure fundal height (the distance in centimeters from the pubic bone to the top of the uterus, which is the fundus) calculate estimated due date, do vaginal checks and pelvimentary assessments and to count fetal heartbeats with a fetoscope. There were no dopplers or ultrasound equipment available. The doctor did do x-rays the final days before a woman’s due date if he suspected anomalies with the baby. A woman with a baby positioned bottom or legs down instead of head down, called a breech position, would be instructed to put a board, even an ironing board with one end on the sofa or coffee table and the other end on the floor, then lie head down on the board and rub her belly with lotion to coach the baby to turn head down. For a few women this worked, but for others he would manually try to turn the baby while I listened for the baby’s heartbeat to stay steady as he turned the baby. We didn’t want a baby tangled in its umbilical cord which could be indicated by a drop in the heartbeat in the baby while the baby was being turned.

He taught me how to treat shock in a woman who had lost more than two cups of blood, and how to turn a baby presenting face up to one presenting face down. He always said if you can’t turn the baby, turn the mother. Keeping the mother up and walking or rocking in a chair helped ease her anxiety and sped progress in labor.

When he decided to retire he gave me a fetoscope. It was not the older one he had used, in which the scope fit on the forehead and the metal band went up over the user’s head, but one which you put the scope to the Mama’s belly and four inches away you put your own forehead and listen to the baby’s heartbeat through the ear tubes. It was easier to listen and easier to distinguish the baby’s heartbeat from the pulse of the umbilical cord or the placental pulse.

I think one of the more important things the doctor taught me was to listen to the patient. He said at first they would test you with small talk and talk about things they knew the answer to, and later their more important questions would come out. That was good advice because rarely did I have a woman on her first or second prenatal visit ask me about jaundice in the newborn or the importance of mother and baby blood types or placenta previa, where the placenta delivers before the baby meaning death to the baby and perhaps the mother as well. Those things would be addressed months down the pregnancy, if needed.

There was much to learn such as filing out the mother’s initial assessment papers such as listing all allergies the mother may have, her Date of birth (DOB), Gravida was how many pregnancies the mother had had. Para was divided into: how many full term pregnancies/how many premature pregnancies/how many terminations or miscarriages/how many live children delivered.

LMP meant the first day of the last normal menstrual period and EDC meant the estimated date of confinement, which is calculated by using the LMP date going ahead seven days and back three months. The baby mostly came within a week before or after the EDC. Very few came on the exact EDC.

Midwives had to know if a mother had previous, pregnancies had she been given a RhoGAM shot after the birth, and her blood type plus the father’s blood type if it was known. It was necessary even if she had had miscarriages or live children for this next birth. As midwives didn’t give RoGAM shots this would have to be arranged or the woman would have to be referred to a doctor for delivery for the safety of the baby. It meant the mixing of the blood of mother and the baby’s blood may be incompatible for the life of the baby.

After this instruction I was out to find more education about birth and babies. I was family friends with a fireman who taught CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) course, and their basic emergency medical technician course. I took that course every year for the entire time I was a midwife and a nurse. Then came the legalities of being a midwife, so a friend and I went to the Bureau of Vital Statistics to enquire about getting birth certificates for our home birthed babies. We told the lady behind the desk we were midwives and she was confused. She didn’t know what a midwife was. She was told the last midwife to register had done so over twenty years earlier. She took our names and addresses, put them on index cards and gave us each fifty blank birth certificates. That made us official in the state as registered midwives. We told the other women interested in becoming midwives where they could also register and get birth certificates.

For a few years I found a young doctor who would give my perspective mothers prenatal care, blood work and lastly the OK for them to birth at home. I didn’t forget my prenatal testing and would also check the mothers to be sure I would be comfortable delivering with them.

After about twenty perfect deliveries, healthy babies I felt I needed to know how to assess the newborn. Although the parents would take their baby to their pediatrician, I wanted to know what to look for and how to assess the baby who was minutes old. I talked to a few friends and decided to go to nursing school. With four children at home and a husband transferred out of state, I managed to graduate from El Centro College of Nursing on the Dean’s list. I felt I had learned so much more and was prepared to be a better midwife for my clients. Then the opportunity to go through a three year midwifery course came along, and I jumped at the opportunity. In this school I not only learned how to check mothers and babies prenatally but postnatally as well. I also learned how to develop a business, a logo and paperwork for the business as well. To have a chart with all the essential information written down on each woman I delivered a baby for and their family.

I think I was most grateful for learning how to deal with unusual situations, what could be dealt with at home, and when to transfer my mothers to the hospital. Also how to be and stay sterile, and what needed to be kept sterile, and what needed to be antiseptic. I practiced inserting catheters and starting IVs in nursing school, but at a home situation I was in a whole new ball game.

Another midwife and I went to the slaughter house and got a cow hearts to learn to cut and then suture it as needed in episiotomies. The cut at times needed to increase the opening of the birth canal to help a large headed baby get out without tearing its way out. That cut or tear would need to be stitched up after the birth. I called it ‘lap quilting’ and probably did five of them in my career. I despised them. In nursing school we were taught every delivering woman needs an episiotomy; in midwifery school we were taught how to prevent a tear with counter pressure on the baby’s head and olive oil and slow easy deliveries along with perineal massages. Took a few minutes longer and a few pushes more but there was nothing to sew up later.

I had couple show up at my front door. They had been to two hospitals and one doctor for suturing of a perineal tear. The doctors and hospitals wouldn’t help them as they had had an unassisted home birth with just her husband present and had no insurance. That ‘lap quilting’ job took me forty five minutes but I did a good job, and the mother didn’t have a very deep laceration. I never knew, and didn’t ask, why they came to me. I did get flowers the next day from a grateful family showing their appreciation.

Because of all the different courses and schools I had gone to, and because I had already delivered for over one hundred women, I could apprentice with a licensed midwife in New Mexico and qualify to take the midwifery test. After passing that test, I was also licensed as a midwife in New Mexico and was registered in Texas. The licensing required a lot more paper work, the keeping of the charts for up to ten years. Also reporting each client either prenatal, birthed or postnatal and the child to the N.M. State Midwifery Director on a monthly basis. Plus every six months we were to take thirty hours of continuing education on anything pertaining to pregnancy or neonatal education. I also had to do this for my nursing license so I could get into courses easily at the community college and broaden my spectrum immensely. Once a year we also took the CPR course and some midwives even taught the course for all our convenience.

In all, my mothers became more like friends and family than numbers and faces as when I had worked with the first doctors. I loved that.

Being licensed, I did all the prenatal care and had to chart everything. If it wasn’t written down in the mother’s chart, it didn’t happen. I also was responsible for the mother getting all her lab work done and the newborn getting a Vitamin Κ shot and eye prophylaxis. I had the mother checking fetal kicks daily at twenty-seven weeks gestation to be sure the baby was active enough. And I had the mother keep a diet diary to be sure she was eating healthy. I made up my own Information Booklet for Prepared Home Birthing. Each mother received a booklet so