Birthday Nurse

July was a record setting month at work...for all times! 361 babies in 31 days...with an 18-bed L&D, no antepartum unit...that's a lot of babies! We had 6 sets of twin, 4 of which happend the last week-and-a-half. I had at least one 3-delivery night (all vag!) plus several 2-delivery nights. We were a busy bunch for sure :) I think all of us nurses are more than happy if we don't break the record again for a VERY long time! It was kinda cool though, I delivered the record-breaking baby one morning(356) and then came back that night and delivered the new record-setting baby (361) that night. How cool is that?! We had a lot of earlier babies too...2 sets of 31wk twins, some 32wk PIH moms...our NICU is full to overflowing! Job security is amazing! I was thinking this week that the begining of August marked my 2-years as a L&D nurse, and my 2-years as a nurse period. I sure feel like I've been doing it longer than that (and am very guilty of telling my patients that I...

So after getting sent home @ 0200 on Monday night, I got the dreaded 'you're on call" phone call @ 1745 last night. I was seriously on my way out to my car...bother. So I sat around after having slept all day, kept texting one of the nurses at work who assured me that everything was nice and quiet and under control. So finally about 0115 I sent one more text saying I was going to bed. My phone rang exactly 10 minutes later "we need you!" Ok ...here I come. I loved my patient that I had, she was 30+1 weeks and had just SROM'd . Absolutely nothing was done for her when I got there other than a sterile spec by the laborist to confirm rupture and that she was closed. Ok ...so IV, antibiotics, one dose of beta, tuck her in. She was "cramping" every 5-10 minutes she said but didn't say they were any more intense than a menstrual cramp. I finally called the doc about 0430 just to let him know that she was still contracting every 5" or so and i...

So it's technically Sunday morning...and this blog is technically about Thursday night. I've been too busy enjoying my whole TWO NIGHTS off (last) week that it hasn't gotten written 'till now...and the Internet connection has been kinda shaky . Anyway, the craziness continues at work...it was jus a SMALL cluster on Thursday night, ok , so it was kinda a crummy night all the way around. Walked in and the assignment didn't look too bad other than the fact that there were no empty rooms, not enough nurses...and it stayed that way all night. The atmosphere was kinda set by the fact that they had just found out that afternoon that one of our extended-stay twin mom's had lost one of her babies. She'd been admitted for several weeks and they kept talking about sending her home but just hadn't ever done it. They'd been doing NST's every 8 hours and after a great NST Wednesday night...the NST on Thursday morning had only one heartbeat. It was really,...

Seriously, I think we're running a special on pre-mature deliveries at work...plus a special on twins. I think we've had more I was just thinking yesterday that I was actually gonna go a whole week without working any extra shifts. That was until my phone rang about 2000 last night. I think my message was something like..."you can have double time, triple time...and free coffee!" There were no empty rooms at one point, a C/S going on, vag twins, 4 extra nurses, 2 or 3 mag patients, my 29week twins contracting and 3cm, and 2 more SROM's on the way...it was a mess! I wasn't too thrilled on hanging out all night, 'cuz tonight is when my 3IAR (in a row) starts and I'm sure it's gonna be crazy. Miraculously, I think after a couple deliveries, handing over early recoveries, etc they were able to get all the "extra" nurses out of there by about 0200. I left at 0145, made a McDonalds run for everyone still there, and then got home about 0230. Go...