Birthday Nurse

I had the best patient today that I've had in a long time. It was a great way to come back to work after a few days off, and a good vacation in Branson. J and I were slotted for 2 inductions. One multip pit induction at 0700 and another cervidal from the night before. The board was crazy (what's new...) and there was no way we were gonna be able to handle both of them, so J took the cervidal and I took the induction. I was pretty proud of myself overall for the day, much better than the last epidsode I had at work. I love the doc that we had, and the couple was as nice as could be. Lots of fun, great at interacting with eachother and with me. They were wide open for anything and when baby was born at 1109 everyone was surprised! One of my favorite things is when the parents don't find out the sex of the baby. It makes it awkward calling the baby "it" all day long, but it's so fun to see the faces of Mom and Dad when they find out if it's a boy or a girl a...

I love reading other people's blogs, I think it's cool to be able to read what's going on in other people's lives and think that these stories are really happening...right now! I follow most of the blogs listed in my Blog Roll, and I just added a spot to show the people that follow my blog and read my stories! So, if you like reading about my adventures, let me know and add yourself to the "Follower's List"!

So yesterday was the first time I really wondered if I'm ever going to be a Labor nurse like the nurses that I look up to. I worked with N yesterday, ' cuz I needed an extra day. The patient I walked into at change of shift was about 1 1/2 hours into pushing, and trust me, that's the worst time to switch patients. The first thing you see of them is them up in stirrups and you're supposed to go over and introduce yourself? Right...I wasn't too convinced that this gal was gonna be a great pusher, and we pushed and pushed in this position and that position for another hour and a half. I wasn't seeing much progress and I think we were both getting a little frustrated and poor girl was getting tired. Then Dr. M walked in and somehow put his hands on the head and made it happen. I love Dr. M, he did the first delivery I ever saw and I've always just thought he was a good doc. N came into the delivery, but she scrubbed in to help Dr. M so I really was kinda doin...

I was really worried that Sunday was going to be like Saturday with not much action. I was half wrong. J and I got a really nice unblocked multip who had SROM'd at like 0130, and was not 5-6cm. She went really fast and we had a cute baby boy at 0805. She did so good, and had such good control. I want to be like that when I have a baby! I see the other side of it too, the people who try to do it naturally and have absolutely NO control and are all over the bed and saying lots of choice 4-letter words. Those patients grind on my last nerve and I wish it could be a nurses' order to get an epidural. As we were walking back from taking our first patient over to postpartum I was thinking it was gonna be a long rest of the day b/c there weren't any more patients for us to take. I went into the galley to get a cup of coffee and get a page that there's a patient at the end of the ramp needing a wheelchair. 30 minutes later we had another baby. That's my kind of delivery...

I think today was the first day since I've been a "Real Nurse" that I haven't had any babies :( That makes me sad! I got really close though, we left a girl almost complete and he delivered at 2006 (yes I called back to check on her about 2130...I'm a sucker!). It was the weekend, so pretty quiet. there were all of 3 nurses on today plus two orientees ...ha! J and I had 3 ante's and we sent them out the door and then got another triage with "vaginal pain" and sent her home in exactly an hour. We could have sent her home earlier, but it's protocol that they have to be o n the monitor for at least an hour, so we took that and no more. The doctor listened to what I told him about what her s/s and he said "well, nothing I can do about it. Send her home." Seriously, you're pregnant...you're gonna have a lot more "vaginal pain" pushing that baby out than you are right now... We had an 18yo prime walk in with SROM , thick mec...

So J threatened to take me off orientation today after 2 deliveries that I did pretty much on my own. I guess that's a good thing, but more than a little scary too. She said "you don't even need me anymore!" But that is so far from true. The moment I get put on my own something bad is gonna go down and then I'll be freaked out forever. Yesterday we had a leftover cervidil from the night before, and then she didn't change so we put in another cervidil "just stick it on your fingers and shove it up somewhere high" were my insertion instructions... haha ! Anyway, this primip gives up after 1 1/2 cervidils , so she ended up being a section. Jamie had started another induction in another room, so I was doing the cervidil pretty much on my own, but then I got another nurse to go back to the OR with me. So circulation and then a section recovery. I ended my day with a nice little R/O rupture that I ticked off when I told her that she wasn't rupture...

When I first started nursing I kinda thought that epidurals really weren't that big of a thing, and I always told myself in the back of my head that they were kinda the "easy" way out. My mom never had one with any of us 3 kids, and I figured that they were " ok " but you could really do the whole process without one...I'm starting to change my tune big time. After J and I got report on our cervidal from last night, we quickly did a precip delivery in another room at 0731, and then I promptly resumed care of the gal we originally had and t kinda stayed that way for the rest of the day. J had to leave at one, and came in a few times to help me out, like during the 7-minute decel after a hyperstim on 5mu/pit and when I couldn't find heart tones, but other than that, I did most of it! When we took over care, patient was 1/20/-3 and had "No epidural!" on her chart. Great...0645 is too early in the morning to see that. So when I started pit and...

I can think of fewer cooler things than watching a set of twins born vaginally...except for one of them being born vaginally breech. I got to see it today...and it was awesome! There's something out of this world about watching one baby be born...but two? And one coming out with it's butt first...that just doesn't happen! There were 14 people in the OR (where all twins are born, just in case we have to crash into a section): mom, dad, 2 nursery nurses, the Neonatal Nurse Pract ., 2 scrub techs, 2 nurses, 2 docs, a pre -med student, a CRNA and another nurse. Then the two babies. That's a big birthday party...in a not very big room! It was way cool though. Baby "A" had always been vertex. On the first scan this morning she was still head down, but "B" was almost transverse, but slightly breech with her butt down. Baby "A" came out in about 1/2 pushes and was way fine. Then "B" didn't flip around to easily. Her bag hadn't r...

I guess when you walk into work during a thunder storm that's been going on all night and see absolutely no green (ante) names on the board and every room has a red (labor) name...you know it's gonna be busy. And when you see that one of the room's has twins and there's another set of twins scheduled for a C/S you know you're gonna have lots of babies before the day shift goes home! I only got one of the 17 babies, but once again, I did it all by myself...almost. Even more than Friday. It was a VBAC which was the first of those I've done. It doesn't really change anything, except that you're m ore careful with how much Pit they get and you almost always get an IUPC so you don't hyper- stim . I got to FEEL a cervix change, from a very tight 2 to complete over a full day. Another multip who went fast at the end, but when she was till only about 5.5 at 1700, I was positive we weren't gonna meet the baby. But at 1751...here comes baby! I was po...

Friday was my day to work with my "other" nurse. I think it's been really good for me to have two main nurses that will let me work with them. J teaches me a ton every time I work with her, and then N makes me go out and do it on my own...and I ususally surprise myself with the confidence I come away with. Friday we had a carryover induction/cervidal from the night before. This was her second baby, and she was bound and determined she didn't need an epidural b/c she hadn't gotten one 18months ago with her first baby 'till she was 9cm, and by that time it didn't really help her. She was about 3 when I came on, and the doc came over and was denying any pain. Then the doc came over and broke her water...and then it started hurting. I figured it was gonna be a long day, especially after we started Pit and they weren't just "natural" contractions anymore. I figured I would be spending the bulk of the day in by her bed helping her through it. All t...

When I got to work on Tuesday I checked out how many babies we had at the hospital in the month of August...324! That's a lot of babies! Yesterday J and I did c/s...3 of them to be exact while the rest of the floor was completely full...maybe a good day to be in the back! When I left yesterday we'd had 13 babies just on day shift. Nurses get worn out after too many days like that! So I got to circulate my first c/s almost by myself...of course J was there, so I kinda got to do it on my own...right? I must say, my least favorite part of delivery is the cleaning the mom up afterwards, and it seems like there's lots of that with a c/s. You have to clean them up in the OR, and then again before they leave recovery. There's just lots of rolling and turning and wiping and it's just not my favorite thing to do. Oh well, we had some great families to work with. I like it when the patients are also nurses, because they are fun to talk to and they relate to what I'm doin...