Cornered

Funny story. Ok, for background, I switched OB/GYN last year. It started when my health insurance dropped the practice I went to. I could have changed my insurance and stayed with my MD (Dr. T), but I would have had to switch my kids doctor and I didn't want to do that. So, I asked myself "who would I chose if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know". Plus I wanted someone who would let me VBAC, and Dr. W and Dr. T both probably wouldn't let me, or rather, would discourage me strongly. So I changed to Dr. D, who has no problem letting me VBAC. The MD who actually delivered Clara is Dr. W, who has I swear a photographic memory. I've been wondering if she remembers that she delivered me last time or not. This a.m., I was in street clothes, waiting to have my yearly evaluation. She came over and asked me "So am I going to get to deliver this baby too?" I wasn't quite prepared, but I said "Well, I have this insurance and had to switch doctors, which sucks for my last baby", yada yada. I could feel my face flush, knowing I was sorta lying. She said "that's too bad, Dr. T won't get to deliver either". I feel a little guilty, I shouldn't, but I do. Dr. W is a good physician, but she's wants way too much control over delivery times. Dr. T, after seeing her in action, I'm thankful she didn't deliver either of my kids. It was a bit of an uncomfortable conversation. Oh well. I said to Dr. W "Well, maybe I'll go into labor on a weekend or at night and you'll be on call". She just loves weekends and nighttime deliveries. I was anticipating some type of conversation about my pregnancy and delivery, but I never thought she would ask me outright.

My evaluation wsa just great. The director said she doesnt hear much about me, but what she does hear is all glowing reports of what a great nurse I am, etc. I started thinking "Maybe I'll get more than the lousy percentage that everyone gets". Nope. Standard percentage slap in the face. At least its a raise. And this morning we got our "success sharing "check from the hospital, and I was quite surprised to see how large it was. I'll be able to put that to good use.

Chef Lochia

Ok, so the title doesnt work so well, but that's ok. Lately I've been working on expanding my cooking menu. Let me start by saying that I'm not a cook. At all. Ok, so I can work wonders with my crockpot, make great cold salads (that I actually will not eat) and I make a mean lasagna and italian beef, but beyond that, I'm not so good. I think most of it is because I don't really enjoy cooking, or rather, I don't enjoy cleaning up the mess. So I do as little as I can get away with. But, I've been tired of eating the same stuff over and over, and I get tired of waiting on the crockpot, so today I made beef stroganoff. I even used real sirloin and made the sauce from scratch. And it was actually good. And this last Friday, I put a chicken in the oven (I usually use my crockpot) and it turned out really juicy and good. So my confidence is growing and I think I might continue trying new things. I found several recipes on-line for different meals, so we'll see where that takes me. Who knows? Maybe I'll turn into a decent cook after all.

Monday madness

I was reading over some of my old posts, and man, do I need to start proofreading! Anyway, this week is going to be a long week. I work my usual weekend 12 hour shifts plus my 8 hour shift this past Monday. I had also signed up for mandatory call (which I loathe) for 4 hours before my shfit Monday night and was of course called in. And they called and asked if I could come earlier than 7p, so I got there at 6p for a fun 13 hour shift. I worked until 11pm as laobr nurse, doing clean-up (discharging patients, finishing jobs the evening girls couldn't get done, NSTs, etc). Then I worked post-partum from 11p-3a and had pretty busy patients. Then I had to be charge nurse from 3a-7p. Oh, and the 3-11 charge nurse called the night charge nurse in at 7pm and said she'd could leave at 3am, but didn't bother to find me anyone else to come in. So, at 3a.m, I was charge nurse, had a full load of busy patients and at 5a.m, had to go back to labor and admit the morning c/s patient, all while doing staffing for day shift, and doing the computer crap they make us do when we are charge. At 6:30, we had 3 patients come up from ER, one was a 28 week triplet mom contracting every 2-3 minutes. Thank goodness dayshift was there, but I imagine they had one hell of a day with everything that was scheduled and was going on. I didn't clock out until 7:45a.m. Towards the end of the night, after I had been running around, extremely busy all night, some people I work with started giving me crap for working too much since I delivered my first two kids at 36 and 37 weeks. (Which, isn't that early and I didn't labor with my 36 week delivery.) It ticked me off because they were the one's who asked me to do it, and where were they when I was busy? I asked for help with getting some things done, to which the answer was "I'm too busy". Plus, if I thought that I was starting to contract, etc., I would obviously stop. And what makes this even better is that I agreed last week to work for another girl on Thursday, forgetting about my extra call I took Monday. So, I'll be in overtime and hospitals love that. When I woke up this a.m., there was a message from work, asking me to come in because it was going to hell again. They only had 2 labor nurses working and had all 7 labor rooms full. I wondered why they didn't call earlier in the evening and try to get someone on call. Who knows. Friday a.m. I have my yearly evaluation with the director. When she first came a little over a year ago, she said that she would never know the night shift staff because she doesnt do well overnight. Nice. I feel it's the director's job to know at least the names of her staff. And I've heard that if she doesn't know you at your eval, she actually says "I don't know you, so all I have to go by is your peer evals". So I'm sure this evaluation will be even more of a waste of time than every other eval I've ever had. Oh well, I'll at least get my yearly raise, such as it is.

Belly pics!

Week 21:

Week 25

Double digits and elective primary c-sections

Wow, I finally hit double digits in the countdown to baby #3! Time has been going by so quickly. I want this pregnancy to go more slowly just because it will be my last, but at the same time I can't wait until December to meet this little guy. I swear this kiddo moves all over the place. Last night he was kicking me in both hip bones, which makes me wonder about his position. There's still lots of time for him to turn regardless, so right now it makes no difference deliverywise, but I'm curious. Based on shape of my abdomen and where I'm feeling movement, I think he's lying transverse, but who knows.

Work this weekend was pretty slow. We had a surrogate delivery this a.m. A sister carried a baby for her brother and sister-in-law who had been trying to conceive for 10 years. 10 YEARS!!! She had a c/s and her husband and the biological parents were there in the OR and it was beautifull. It's been awhile since a delivery moved me to tears (for happy reasons) but this one did. It was the dad. I always cry when the dads cry. When momhanded him his daughter, it was absolutely beautiful. Tears just kept coming from his eyes and he was so gently without looking like he was afraid of this little 8 lb baby. Love moments like that. I can't even fathom what it must be like to finally have a child after trying for so long.
In other news, I found out that we are now doing elective primary c-sections. I just don't understand this trend, and I feel pretty strongly that it's not right.
** Warning: graphic description ahead***
Why on earth would someone not want to even try to let their body do what God intended for it to do and go straight to having their abdomen and uterus cut open, pulled out, sown back together and then shoved back in, without any medical reason? I'm not talking elective repeat c/s or first timers who have c/s for twins, or baby's condition, previa or whatever. Just one's not wanting to labor and have pain. I've got news for them: pain from abdominal surgery lasts much longer than the pain of labor. And I'm not just talking from nursing experience but from personal experience. Oh well. What do I know and what does nature know? There's only one group that's actually doing them and they say "Well, you have to give everyone that option". Why? Why steer someone to something more dangerous in general for mom and baby? Well, I'm off to bed. Hopefully the little bean will decide to stop doing his little jig he's doing right now and follow my lead. We'll see :)

Don't want to leave out Jacob, so here's a picture of him doing his classic cheesy grin with his bike. You can see how ornery he is in this picture!

Quiet weekend

Today, Clara officially turned 3! We're not doing much today, but we are having family down this Saturday for cak and ice cream. I sure wish I could slow down the clock because it seems like it keeps going fast and faster. It still feels like yesterday that I was wheeled into the nursery to see her for the first time under the oxihood, waiting to hear what the cardiologist had to say about her echo and EKG, holding her for the first time when she was ten hours old and crying because if her legs werent even with her heart, they would swell up within a few minutes. You'd never believe that she's the same little girl looking at her now!

It's amazing how in OB, and probably every unit in the hospital, how you can go from an absolute madhouse to dead quiet. This weekend was sooooo slow. Saturday not as bad as Sunday. Sunday we had 3 mom/baby dyads, and one outpatient back in labor. We spent 12 hours cleaning, organizing, etc. It was stuff we needed to get done, and it worked out because it was rumored that JCAHO was in the area, but it sucked. It was the longest 12 hour shift I've worked in awhile.

One patient we had over the weekend was interesting. She and her husband are civil war re-enactors and had had their first baby almost exactly a year ago. They always were in clothes reminiscent of that era. She was quiet and he was large and very intimidating. You could tell by the way he talked to her that the relationship was probably abusive. I remember with her first baby, after we had her back in the c-section room, her physician asked her before we brought her husband back if she felt safe. She said she did, and they stayed with us last time for quite awhile because their first baby was only 34 weeks. The dad was just creepy. We had to change the code to the nursery door because he had figured it out and actually opened the door. He would decide when she had pain meds (which wasn't often) and would only let her take motrin. I just wanted to say "Let's cut your abdomen open, and see how you tolerate the pain on top of breastfeeding". Now less than a year later, they were back. It didn't seem quite as bad, but you could tell by the way he talked to her that he had no respect for her. She did take more for pain this time, but partly because we said that it was prescribed by her MD. It just killed us to watch them because we know he's probably abusive, but there's nothing we could do since she said she felt safe. Maybe we are wrong. She'll probably be pregnant again very soon because I'm sure when he has his 'need', he'll pay no attention to whether they have been cleared by the MD or not.

Now that I've started playing with adding pictures to my posts, I think I really will get some belly shots up. As soon as I find all the stuff I need to download the images onto the computer!