For Jenny with Love

Being an ob/gyn, I often have stories that are probably not completely appropriate to blog about. This next one may border on not being blog-appropriate...but I'm going to do it anyway. It happens to be my sister Jenny's favorite story to date.

So I was delivering a baby for this very sweet young girl. We're getting ready to have her start pushing and she says "um...how often do people poo when they're pushing because I've been really constipated and I'm afraid I'll poo." I tell her, as every kind doctor would: oh, we never notice when people do that, don't even worry about it. I mean, if you think of it, the head has to come out and if there's something in the way that's gotta come out first so you just push that baby out and don't worry about anything else.

Confessions of an ob/gyn--most women poo while they deliver. They just do. It can't be helped. So if your doctor tells you hardly anyone does, they're lying. Not everyone does, but lots of people do. If they're telling you they don't notice, also not true. We don't think twice about it or worry about it, but you can't help but notice. Sorry. And while we're talking about secrets of being an ob/gyn, let me mention the navel. If you ever go in for surgery, please clean your navel out. If you don't, your operating room team will. With a q-tip. And it's sometimes startling (and gross) to discover what's hiding inside. But I digress...

So this nice young girl is pushing and getting ready to have a baby and then she stops and says "Oh my gosh--did I just poop? I think I just pooped" and indeed she did, but being constipated it came out as a large poo ball. Let me stop and apologize. I would typically not describe someone's--or anyone's poo, except it's essential to the telling of the story. Go with me on this one. So she releases a poo ball and says "Did I just poop??" to which her nurse and I both say, oh don't even worry about. Just focus on getting that baby out. But the poo ball is sitting on the edge of the bed and just when the nurse was reaching over to whisk it inconspicuously away, it rolls off the bed...onto the floor....bounces....and lands on the toe of my shoe. No joke. This really happened. Well the nurse and I had successfully stayed professional until this point. We both watched the poo ball like spectators at a tennis match, looking first at the bed, then the floor, then to my shoe, then slowly raising our eyes to look to each other. We make eye contact. And lose it, breaking out in laughter. Poor girl was so embarrassed but we couldn't help it--it was funny! And then she had a baby and they were happy. Ahhhh, the life of an obstetrician.