cervical lip or just 9 cm?

[tinyshoes]

I'm calling myself an ad hoc direct-entry doula, LOL.....I doula'd at my friend's hospital birth this past weekend, and I have a question.

The L&D RN declared my friend to be complete. So we (laboring mom, dad, me) leave the serene dark calm private bathroom space and laboring mom hops up onto the bed for another vag exam. The nurse was wondering what she was feeling for sutures (this RN thought the baby was OP because the laboring mom wanted counterpressure during ctx. Mom had no back labor.)

Then she askes the MD to vag exam her, and he says she has a cervical lip.

He tells laboring mom to wait, ctx peter out as laboring mom is now reclining on bed vs. standing and moving in the darkened bathroom. After an hour, we get laboring mom back into the bathroom "Do you want to pee on the toilet?!" I ask.

Her labor picks up again and after a while (1/2 hour?) she's near-naked and loud and grunty and pushy and is again invited by the MD and the RN to leave the dark bathroom and hoist herself onto the bed to "be delivered." Now there's no cervical lip.

My question:

was this an actual cervical lip? or was this mama just 9 cm?

...and any other thoughts/reflections you might have about this experience would be appriciated and valued. Thank you!!

[Zoo Loo Naturals]

It's all everyone's personal opionion when doing vag exams. It could have been either. I think the point was, was Mama ready to push, did she need a rest before the work of pushing, did she need more private time, did she wish to birth in the dark security of the bathroom...?

Mama will rest, when she needs it, find a dark spot to labor when she needs it, push when she is ready to birth her baby.

You did the right thing in getting her back in her comfy spce, her "nest." :wink

[tinyshoes]

thanks Zoo Loo...

and you are right on the money--she wasn't ready to push & she did need more alone time. Also, I appriciate your insight as to the subjective nature of vag exams...as I've never done one! It seems to me like almost complete or complete would be a definitive answer (vs. 4 cm or 6 cm, which must be harder to appriciate.)

[Charmie981]

I've had a nurse try to push a doula client through the reduction of a "lip" and when it failed, the nurse said "well, really, she has a rim all the way around." I was like, "oh, so really she's about 9 cm and it's normal to be grunty and not really want to push?" (this nurse got off at 7am but really wanted to "be there" for the birth *sigh*). I think sometimes it's so easy to say, "oh, we can just get this thing out of the way and get on with it," when really the path of least resistance is to just WAIT it out. I know the particular client I mentioned had some swelling in her cervix and then did end up with an anterior lip that didn't go away for hours. Wonder what would've happened if the hurried nurse hadn't tried to "reduce" her 9cm cervix?