Birthday Nurse

I must say....I've been waiting to catch a baby for a long time now! It's been almost a year since I've caught a baby! Yet another reason I love unblocked multips with no doc in house :) Yay!! I have yet to catch a nice, normal controlled delivery, all my babies just shoot out at me. And once again, one glove on and one glove off. I guess it's my signature :) Shift change, I had just gotten report. Grand multip, unblocked, on pit, ruptured. The doc had just called, she was 5cm and he said to call him when we were ready. I checked her about 20min later and she was 6cm. I stuck a warmer in my room and put a delivery table outside my door just to be ready. Someone else delivered and needed a gelpie , so I went in to help them look for one. I got back to my room and my Mom said "I gotta puke..." I put on a glove, sure enough, there was the head. I grabbed the phone and called the laborist's room.....it rang....the head came out...I put the phone down in the be...

I could sum up this last week in 1 word: CRAZY!! But...to be fair, I'll post about each day. Since it's Saturday now (and this recaps Monday through Friday) I may be minus a few details...but all my numbers are correct! Monday night started the ball rolling. I took report on a very nice patient from one of the day shift nurses. The patient was a multip already in labor, already had an epidural and was comfortable. So it was the waiting game on her. She labored very nicely. About 1930 I took a triage who came in contracting, it was her 4 th baby. She was in great control, but was ready for an epidural ASAP, so I got her blocked, comfy and then sat down to chart. Meanwhile, my 1st patient was starting to have a few variables, so I went to check her and she was complete. I set her up and we only pushed a few time, called the doc in and had a very nice delivery! I came out of her delivery, stuck my head in to check on my 2 nd patient and she mentioned she was feeling a little bi...

Seems like I haven't worked/blogged in a VERY long time! But don't fear...the craziness has still be going on, I guess I've just been avoiding it...until last night. I turned down 2 extra shifts in my "8 days off (which was really 7 this time around...)" for 2 different but very valid reasons. I realized when I went car shopping yesterday that maybe a few extra shifts in the near future would be a GOOD thing and I need to stop coming up with excuses like "I'm tired" or "I'm busy", etc...reality bites! Anyway, as I'm halfway to work yesterday (after an hour and a half nap after the car deal...) I get a call from the day charge nurse..."Sorry it's 1815, but we're putting you on call!" Seriously? Here I am thinking that I need extra shifts and I can't even work my regular ones anymore? I was JUST on-call, and I'm half-way to work already! But what can you do...so I drove to the gym (just a different building ...

When I walked into work I had a brief moment of celebration as to how nice the board looked! NO MAG!! a couple antes, a couple postpartum's , a couple of early recoveries...it was beautiful. Then when I left this morning...no empty rooms. That's what we did last night! I admitted 5 patients last night, ended up handing a couple of them off because I can't handle 3 active labor patients at the same time all being admitted within an hour of each other . Sorry... I started off with a post- partum bleeding, family practice delivery who needed suprapubic pressure, but was intact? I don't think so...when we finally got the laborist in and spec'd her they found a bunch of placental fragments and she used 3 sutures to fix labial tears. Reason #283 why I recommend going to an OB for obstetrical cases... Handed her off when I got 2 ROL's at the same time. Both ended up staying, and of course I balanced them so that I didn't sit down all night. My goodness...I...

Why don't I do Mom/Baby (postpartum) nursing? Because I can't handle it. I don't know why I can't handle it, but I can't handle it. I don't understand the charting, I don't really, truly understand the correct "assessment" of it...I just don't get it. Hence why I don't do it. Well, why I didn't do it until last night. There were lots of not-so-nice words going on in my head when I saw my assignment was 2 post- partum mag patients, plus one of their babies. I've done postpartum mom's...never the babies. I'm NOT a baby nurse, I'm a MOMMY nurse...once the baby is on the outside, it scares me just a little because I don't know what to do to it or how to fix it if it breaks. I can't roll it on it's side to get it off the cord, I can't put on a scalp lead to hear the heart beat, I can't run to the back for a C/S if all else fails...besides a pacifier in the mouth I don't know how to fix a baby! Anywa...

Ok ...this not being able to sleep at night is really starting to get to me. It's after 0300...and why am I not tired? It's weird to think that at this time yesterday morning I was still shaking after catching a baby. But I'd do it again (and hopefully will again someday!) in a heartbeat! P.S. Everything but one little tiny spot of meconium came out of my scrubs and my brand new long sleeved shirt I was wearing underneath. That made me VERY happy, even though my mom wanted to know why I was doing laundry at 5am...!