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Hello, my baby: Delivery nurse brings own daughter into world

  • Published
  • By Ken Wright
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  "I love that sound," the mother said softly as nurses and technicians hovered over her newborn girl. "I love a crying baby."

On a list of soothing sounds, a crying baby rarely ranks high for most people, but for Capt. Savannah Mendez, nothing is more reassuring.

"It means your baby is alive and well," Mendez said. "When I heard her cry, I knew she had a good set of lungs and could breathe. I was holding my breath through the whole pregnancy. When I heard her cry, I knew we could tell the whole world we have our baby."

Mendez isn't just a mother, she's a labor and delivery nurse who typically works alongside those at the 60th Inpatient Operations Squadron maternal child flight who helped her give birth at David Grant USAF Medical Center. As someone who has helped countless mothers give birth, she is acutely aware of the many things that can go wrong during pregnancies, let alone labor and delivery. Also by her side throughout her own 8-hour ordeal was her husband, Capt. Jon Mendez, 60th IPTS nurse. Savannah Mendez said being surrounded by people you have faith in makes all the difference.

"You want someone you trust with your life," said Savannah Mendez. "I had great faith in the team that helped me deliver my baby. I trusted them all."

Mendez was listening to her baby's heart rate the throughout the labor so she could take her own measures to help her baby when necessary.

"I would tell Jon, 'you need to turn me'," she said. "No matter what, it's scary. Nothing really prepares you for labor. Being a labor and delivery nurse comes with blessings and curses because we are aware of so many things that can go wrong. As a mother, I feared everything. Even my second pregnancy was scary."

To help with her anxiety, Mendez turned to her faith.

"I know it's not for everyone, but God has answered all my prayers, she said. "My advice for any parents is to just pray or believe in whatever place of love you have in your heart."

Mendez was just one of nearly 500 women who gave birth at DGMC in the past year. Maj. Tania Sims, former flight commander of the MCF, said the hospital's Labor and Delivery and Mother Baby unit delivers about 40 babies per month. Before permanently changing stations to Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, Sims was at Travis for three years.

"Labor and delivery is where mothers actually go through the pains of delivery," Sims said. "They are huffing and puffing with their support person, trying to give it all they've got to get through what is probably the most uncomfortable pain they have ever imagined."

Once contractions occur every 1 to 2 minutes, mothers can be in labor anywhere from minutes to days, but Sims said most women are in labor for two to 36 hours.

"Eventually the mother has a completely dilated cervix, which is when the final stage of work begins with nurses and support partners guiding and encouraging them," she said. "Once they've gotten there, it's time for the pushing. That can take between 30 minutes and three hours of hard work every two minutes bearing down, pushing in a sequence of three until they are able to get their delivery where they can see the fruits of their labor--a healthy baby boy or girl."

Labor partners are not spared a healthy dose of stress.

"It's challenging to bear witness to," Sims said. "Fathers feel a little helpless because they are in an environment where there is little they can do to help a loved one going through the pain of labor. All they can do is hold their hand and try to give them encouragement. It's stressful. They are stressed out. It's stressful to see someone you love go through so much pain for so long. It's draining."

Sims' advice is for labor partners to maintain their energy so they can be there for the mother. They need to have someone to focus on.

"A delivery room can feel like a noisy football stadium, but your voice will stand out above all others," she said. "The rest is white noise."

Once the staff of the labor and delivery unit has stabilized mother and baby, the mother gets a little reprieve from doctors and nurses and has a chance to bond with her baby in the MBU. That's where the training begins.

Breast feeding, cord care, diaper care, how to bathe the baby and when to call the doctor are all covered, amongst other things.

"Mother Baby (Unit) is really the training platform," Sims said.

Long ago the babies would go to a nursery and the new mother wouldn't really learn how to care for her newborn. The goal of MBU is to make sure in 2 days, they learn all the basics they need for recovery and to go home and maintain safety for their newborn.

"That's why we do couplet care," Sims said. "The mother and baby stay together at virtually all times. We fill a lot of training in those 2 days. The hands-on training gives much more than any video can provide."

Birth is a blessing every time. It is a miracle every time. No.1, to get a child to full term, and two, to actually deliver and take home a living, breathing human being. There is no comparison.

"There is nothing that can compare to two individuals creating another human being," Sims said. "Working in a place where a miracle happens on average 1.3 times per day, you can't beat that either."