This is what it looks like in the middle of the night right before doing surgery on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy. This mother of three came to our hospital with severe lower abdominal pain, a very fast heart beat, and low blood pressure. When we examined her abdomen it was very tender in the lower pelvic region. We did a quick ultrasound confirming our suspicion that she had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. This is a surgical emergency. I walked quickly to the operating rooms and woke up the surgical staff, but I could not find the anesthetist. It turns out he was trying to help revive a 28 week baby who had been born two days earlier. I found him because the pediatrician called as I was sitting the in the OR and asked me how a different, critical patient in the ICU was doing. This other patient was admitted for severe HELLP syndrome. This is basically a multi-organ failure during pregnancy resulting in anemia, liver failure, clotting failure, and in this patient’s case she had developed blood clots in her lungs. I said she was stable, asking why she would want to know. It turned out this unfortunate woman’s baby had died. My on call anesthesia tech had been helping try to resuscitate the baby. Ari (the pediatrician) wanted to assess how the mother was doing in the ICU before she let her know her baby had died. I ran up to ICU to check on her, and I watched as Ari in the most gentle manner shared the bad news of our sick patient’s baby’s death. I walked quickly back to the OR, scrubbed in and opened up the abdomen of our ectopic pregnancy patient. The pelvis overflowed with blood and clots, but with suction the uterus was seen and the large ectopic pregnancy (this is a pregnancy outside of the uterus) was seen in the area where the fallopian tube enters the uterus. We took care of the dead ectopically positioned pregnancy, started a transfusion for the mother, and then closed up. I went home only to be woken to the news that another patient had a severe perineal tear from her early morning delivery. Back to the hospital I rushed to sew up this bleeding tear in the operating room. Today I have a lighter load, doing lectures in the ICU. I am so glad, because it was a tiring night. Oh, and its my birthday! A great start to year number 49. Yes that means I am 48 years old today. I cannot believe it.