Birthday Nurse

It's been a long time since I have wanted NOT to go back to work. Usually I can have a rough night and then move on...but I seriously do NOT want to go back to work tonight. It's been a long first two nights of this set of 3, and I'm just not sure I can do one more. I'm trying to pick out the positives, like I get 8 days off after tonight, and I'm getting to go out of town tomorrow morning after I get off, and I made it though 2 nights I can make it through 1 more...but it's not helping too much! I had a nasty strip tonight, had to run to the ER and catch a baby and then do the recovery of the mom who spoke NO English. I loved my cervidil couple, they were amazing, but their baby just wouldn't cooperate! I'm still working on this "control" thing, and realizing that I can't control what the baby's doing and I can't necessarily "fix" anything, but it doesn't make my pulse any slower when the baby's pulse is! Anyway...

I am always happy when my 3rd of 3 is done! It makes me feel like a new person! Gotta enjoy 2 nights off, suck it up for 3 more then have 8 off. Yippee! I love the 8 off, but the 3 sets of 3 are kinda long if I'm honest about it. It started out CRAZY tonight. I think, from the way day shift talked, that it was crazy all day long. I was "happy" with my 4 antepartums, and slowly just worked on getting my 30wk PTL who was happily contracting away to settle down, discharged my N/V girl and discharged my epigastric pain girl and helped my kidney stone girl settle in. After I got my two discharged and my 30wkr stopped contracting and fell asleep the night was good. I was actually pretty proud of myself for not freaking out, making decisions and being pretty self-sufficient. The rest of the unit was a mess too, just busy, busy, busy and lots of people walking in at shift change. I swear, it's those dangerous hours of between 5:30 and 7 on either end of the clock. They should...

Here are my new thoughts about nursing staffing in general: 1. Shift change should be outlawed...because you always know that everything is going to go crazy at shift change , no matter what time it is. Everything can be smooth sailing and then right before shift change something will snap and the next shift walks in and wonder just what the @#&* the shift before them did to turn everything into a disaster. Like my ROL that walked in this morning...she was a lose 1.5 (same as she's been in the office the week before) and hurting. She changed to a very tight 2 in an hour, that's not too big of a change, but I didn't feel comfortable letting her just walk out the door. I already had a D/C order if she didn't change and she had a dr's apt scheduled for later that morning. So what is she when the day shift checks her an hour later...3-4cm. Now don't I feel dumb for not having an IV started and everything rolling! I got that impression from the day shift nurse...

So I'm nervous after the first night goes decently well...I actually thought about sitting down and blogging about 0200 this morning since I was doing nothing, but thought it wasn't very good "nursing practice" to do my first shift with a bunch of new people. The night group seems really relaxed though, and it was a good group of nurses to start out with. I wasn't sure what kind of welcome it was when I looked at the schedule sheet when I got there and my name wasn't on the list. I guess the message hadn't gotten relayed that I was beginning orientation last night, and the nurse that I was supposed to orient with was orienting someone else, and it was slightly a mess. But I refused to go home, so after some assignment switching and swapping, I ended up with a different nurse and a different patient, which I was ok with. That nurse ended up leaving about 0100 and so then I got passed around to whoever else was watching over my shoulder. Ha! I felt bad for...