Birthday Nurse

So I went into work last night kinda sad that it was my last night on orientation, I even took brownies! Imagine my surprise when they told me I wasn't on orientation last night...I was just on my own and here's your patient that's 8cm. So, deep breath in, grab a pager and go. And guess what...I survived (and so did my patients!) :) The night went pretty good! Really nice delivery about 2000, first baby, mom and dad were both super excited and fun to talk to and get to know. Everyone showed up on time (nursery included) and it was a fun birthday party! Got the recovery all done and Mom moved over to her postpartum room before my triage showed up, so I was pretty excited! Triaged a R/O pre -term labor who was contracting, but not changing so vistaril'd her and sent her home before 0100. Then sat on my behind until about 0625 when the C/S that was scheduled for 1400 showed up in labor. Now here's what I can't figure out...when I took the traige at midnight, and...

Maybe it's because I hadn't worked for 8 days...but this weekend was an adventure! I loved having 8 days off, but I'm afraid it may have been a little too long, cuz all of a sudden 3 in a row seemed like a LOT! Thursday night we did a cervidil that did nothing and ended up being cut Friday afternoon, and I also had a ROL that was a G7 who came in banging out contractions every 2 minutes that were off the chart. We watched her for the last 4 hours of the shift and she never changed, but was still contracting pretty regularly after fluids, vistaril , terb , and a morphine/ phergan combo IM . But nobody wanted to send a term G7 home still contracting that often. I think they sent her home mid-morning on Friday. Friday night was when it got interesting. I think every L&D unit has "codename patients" who are frequent fliers for a very LONG 9 months and everyone celebrates after they deliver :) It seems like some docs specialize in these kinds of patients too. A...

So the good news about going to night shift is no more alarms going off at 0515 every morning for work :) That makes me happy! It makes me very, very, very sad that I don't get to work with J anymore though. I actually got a little choked up and teary last night when I was writing her a card. J has been the most amazing preceptor/mentor whatever you want to call it, she's been it and more. She was the one who first every taught me anything on the floor about L&D out of nursing school. I worked with her for 3 months last summer as an student intern, did over 50 deliveries with her last summer and I really think that it was because of her that I got the job offer on L&D after graduation. She was the one who encouraged me through the last year of nursing school and even more this summer after I had to re-take my boards. She's done all of my precepting and has taught me everything that I know about L&D nursing. Everything I can do I have her to thank for it, and ev...

Thank you for everyone's support after the JCAHO incident last week! I'm singing praises that I got 5 days off and a vacation to TN after that! Today the state Health Department showed up, thank goodness they went to visit Mom/Baby and not us! So as I was leaving today, J told me, "I'm not so sure you need much time left on orientation." No! Don't tell me that yet!!! I WANT more time on orientation! I got blessed with another lovely induction couple, postdates by about a week. They were great! I was very, very, very sad when I left and she was just about complete after working for 12 hours to go from 1/50 and then work with her for 10 hours without a block and then she finally smiled again and I had to walk out the door! :( She almost got me to stay when I took the baby warmer in the room and she asked me "aren't you going to stay and help me?" No..............but I'm heading back in the AM so they're first stop on my list to go visit. ...